


against all odds (take a look at me now)

by shuuuliet



Category: Psych (TV 2006)
Genre: Action, Adventure, Explosives, F/M, Set during season 7, Shules, alternately titled "shawn and juliet! in an adventure with explosives!", but broken-up shules, not necessarily canon compliant, oh my, reference to s06e16: SantaBarbaratown, suspend your disbelief about bombs for this one guys, well...broken-up but still in love shules
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-12 09:28:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 25,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28758093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shuuuliet/pseuds/shuuuliet
Summary: Ever since they broke up, Shawn and Juliet have done their best to keep their distance from one another. But now, one of their old cases has been blown wide open. A criminal that evaded arrest is back…and he’s targeting them specifically. Can they make it out of this case alive? And can they find their way back to each other along the way?(Set during Season 7, a few weeks after "Deez Nups".)CURRENTLY: Chapter Nine: Juliet considers old wounds. Todd gets a shiny new name. Foggy details emerge about a borrowed tattoo. Shawn gets distracted by something blue. All the while, they hide…in more ways than one.
Relationships: Carlton Lassiter & Juliet O'Hara, Carlton Lassiter & Shawn Spencer, Juliet O'Hara & Karen Vick, Juliet O'Hara/Shawn Spencer
Comments: 57
Kudos: 29





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I haven’t written much action before, but I’ve started to dabble in it here and there, so I wanted to write my first story that involves an actual case. Obviously, at its core, this is still a Shules story, because I can’t imagine writing anything else, but it’s definitely a change of pace from my usual work, so I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> Title comes from Phil Collins’ “Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)” (1984), as a nod to the Chief’s canonical love for Phil Collins. I don’t own Psych or anything else.

Juliet poured herself a second cup of coffee and headed towards her desk. It was only mid-morning—very early for her to be on her second cup, as she usually showed much more restraint—but she had woken up feeling anxious, some strange since of foreboding hanging over her the whole time she was getting ready for work, and not dissipating as she drove to the station.

When she’d arrived at work, nothing seemed amiss. The Chief wasn’t in the office yet, but that wasn’t entirely out of the ordinary—she often had meetings at City Hall or other responsibilities that kept her away from the station in the morning. Of course, she didn’t _remember_ the Chief mentioning any meeting or anything, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t one.

And yet, Juliet was still feeling a strange sense of dread, like some sort of turmoil was building up, and any second, it would explode. She sat at her desk with her fresh cup of coffee and shook her head to clear it. Maybe she just had a headache coming on or something; there was no reason to believe that something more sinister was brewing.

Turning back to the file she’d been aimlessly flipping through while she tried to regain her focus all morning, Juliet tried to get back to work.

Suddenly, the Chief stormed into the station, eyeing Juliet at her desk. Juliet looked up, alarmed, as Chief Vick came in. She didn’t look _angry_ , exactly, but she certainly looked upset, and as Juliet looked up at her, she thought she spotted a hint of fear on the Chief’s usually calm face. Worry rose in her for a moment—if the _Chief_ is afraid, that’s never a good sign.

Chief Vick heads for her office. “O’Hara, I’d like to see you in my office in about five minutes for a briefing. Lassiter, you come here first, please.”

Juliet frowns. Chief Vick always briefs them together; it seems strange that she would separate them. It’s not a good sign.

Across the station, her partner is clearly having the same thought. “You can’t brief us together?”

“Not this time,” she responses, her voice crisp and clear. _No nonsense_. “Lassiter, _now_ , please.”

Lassiter turns towards Juliet as he goes, offers her a quizzical look and then a shrug, following the Chief into her office.

He emerges five minutes later, looking visibly shaken. “Carlton?” she asks. “Are you okay?”

He doesn’t look at her, and his voice is eerily calm— _he’s trying too hard_ , Juliet thinks. Almost robotically, he says, “she’s ready for you now, O’Hara.”

Before she can say anything further to him, he’s gone, walking down the hallway towards the interrogation rooms. The fear is growing quickly in Juliet now, and she swallows, taking a deep breath, and then opens the door to the Chief’s office, closing it behind her.

The Chief is quiet at first, but she seems calmer than she had when she first walked into the station a few minutes earlier. “O’Hara, good. Sit down, please.”

Juliet does. “Is everything okay, Chief?” she asks, trying not to let her nervousness leak into her voice.

The Chief takes a deep breath. “I’m afraid not. There was an explosion this morning, down by the water.”

Juliet frowns. “Down by the water?”

The Chief nods grimly. “Near Henry Spencer’s house…well, his yard.”

“Oh my God. Is he okay? Was he there?”

“Henry is fine. But Mr. Spencer—Shawn—has been living there, and…well, he was injured.”

Juliet felt her heart drop into her stomach. Not Shawn. Not _now_ , not when they hadn’t _really_ spoken in weeks, not when he had broken her heart and she’d spent the last several weeks watching herself continue to break his.

“Oh, God,” she says softly. “He’s not--,” she doesn’t let herself say it; no, she won’t even _think_ it. “How bad is it?”

“All things considered, not too bad, thank God. It was a crude device. He was knocked out by the force of the explosion, and his wrist is badly sprained, and he’s pretty cut and bruised in places, but he’s alive. He understood what was happening just before the explosion actually went off, so he managed to get away from it a little bit before it actually detonated.”

Juliet nodded, relief flooding through her. Shawn was _alive_. “Thank God.”

“His abilities came in handy,” the Chief commented, and Juliet felt a surge of guilt. At the same time, the Chief raised an interesting question—how could Shawn have known what was about to happen to him? She knew he wasn’t psychic, and yet, there were times like this in which she still couldn’t wrap her head around how he did what he did. It helped, a little—she felt less stupid for having believed in him all these years—but it also stung, remembering how it had felt to find out that all of it had been a lie.

Realizing she hadn’t responded, Juliet merely nodded, hoping that would do. “Was Henry there when it happened?” she asked again.

“Yes, luckily. He’s the one who called it in. I can only imagine the distress it must have caused him, given that he’s still recovering from his chest wound.”

Juliet nodded grimly. “I’m so glad he wasn’t injured as well.”

“So am I. The difficulty now will be keeping him off this case. You know as well as I do that he’s impossible to dismiss where his son is concerned.”

Juliet smiled. _That_ was certainly true, no matter what Shawn tried to say about their relationship.

“Is Shawn in the hospital?” she asked, hoping the Chief would answer the question she’d left unsaid as well. _When can I see him?_

“No, true to form, he refused transport. The ambulance cleaned him up as best they could and wrapped his wrist. He should be here momentarily to give his full statement.”

Juliet nodded. “Well, if he’s well enough to insist on not going to the hospital, that’s a good sign.”

The Chief nodded but grimaced. “It is, although I usually prefer that my team takes their injuries seriously, and with Mr. Spencer, you just never know…”

Juliet smiled. “Understood.” She stood up from her chair to leave.

“Ah…wait just a moment, O’Hara. There’s something else.”

Juliet turned, heading back to her chair. “Yes, Chief? Did you want me to take his statement, or…?” Now that she knew Shawn was actually going to be okay, she felt herself reverting to her old choice not to see him. It was just too hard. Every time she looked at him, it hurt, although these days, she was no longer entirely sure whether that pain came from the memory of his lies or from the fact that he was no longer hers.

“No, it’s not that. I’ve put Lassiter on that.”

Juliet snorted. “I’m sure he’s thrilled.”

The Chief smiled for just a moment, and then her face immediately returned to seriousness. “I’m afraid this is a little bit more serious than taking a statement, O’Hara. You see, when Mr. Spencer got out of the way of the explosion, he realized that the device wasn’t the only thing our suspect apparently left for him. There was also a note attached to the front door of Henry Spencer’s house, perhaps left as a warning should the device malfunction. And the note that he found mentioned you, too.”

“Me?”

“Yes, O’Hara. Apparently, whoever’s after Mr. Spencer is also after you.”

Juliet frowned, trying to process that. “What’s the…what’s the connection between Shawn and me? What I mean is—why would someone be targeting the two of us? Did the note mention anyone else?”

“No one else was mentioned. We’re not sure what the connection could be. Obviously, you and Mr. Spencer have…a history, but we have no reason to believe that that fact specifically has anything to do with this. Mr. Spencer is convinced it has to do with a case the two of you worked on.”

“Huh. I guess that would make sense,” Juliet said. “But that doesn’t narrow it down much. Did Shawn have any idea which one?”

“Unfortunately, no, not when I last spoke with him. He was as stumped by this as you are.”

“Was there anything specific in the note? Anything at all that might help us figure this out?”

The Chief shook her head. “Nothing. The note was basically just a list, with two bullet points. Shawn’s name had been crossed out, probably because the perp assumed he would have taken care of Shawn by the time it was found, and yours was the only other one listed. There was nothing else written on the note. We’re having the handwriting analyzed, of course, but we’re never sure that anything will come of that.”

“Huh. Well, that won’t make it easy,” Juliet said. “Maybe I can start going through some files, and when Shawn’s done with his statement, I can see if there’s anything else. He may—he may have come up with something by then.” She stood up, ready to start working on the case. The sooner she started, the sooner she could stop worrying about Shawn, and about _her_ and Shawn.

“Oh…O’Hara?”

“Yes?”

“I thought you might want to know—when Mr. Spencer came to, Henry said that his first question was whether or not _you_ were okay.”

Juliet nodded slowly, not sure how to respond. Guilt pooled at the bottom of her stomach. Shawn had been hurt—knocked out--and his first thought was…her? She felt the tug she’d been feeling with increasing frequency over the past few weeks, the urge to just put everything with Shawn behind them and move forward… _together_.

Her mind flashed to a different moment, months ago now, a moment of relief and happiness on a bench with Shawn, in what had been one of the scariest cases they had ever worked on. _“Jules, my single greatest fear used to be that something would happen to_ me _. Second greatest fear was that something would happen to Gus. Clearly all of that has changed, so do me a favor and stop finding yourself in grave danger.”_

 _“I will do my best,”_ she’d responded, then.

Well, a lot of good that promise had done both of them. Now she was in danger, Shawn had almost been killed, and what was worse…they didn’t have each other to rely on anymore. And yet, this was just another one of those moments in which she realized that Shawn had been telling the _truth_ , when it came to how he felt about her. Clearly, he had, given that his first thought upon waking up had been her safety.

The pain in her heart grew deeper. God, she missed him. And she didn’t want to, not with everything that had happened, but she kept remembering all the good, all the wonderful moments when she’d been sure she could never love anyone else more than she loved him, and it became impossible not to feel the weight of his absence, the unbearable pain of learning to live without.

“O’Hara? O’Hara?”

Juliet snapped back to attention, blushing as she realized that she had no idea how long the Chief had been calling her name. “Sorry, zoned out for a second there.”

The Chief gave her a knowing glance, as if to say, _we both know you were thinking about him_ , and Juliet felt her blush deepen. “I know this is a lot to take in,” the Chief said gently, “but you know we will put every person we have on this, and we _will_ keep you two safe. We will do everything it takes.”

Juliet nodded. “I know. I’m…strangely, I’m not that worried about the threat. I think we’re going to be okay. But I _am_ going to start going through some old files, see if I can figure out who might be behind this.”

“Start recent,” the Chief advised. “Mr. Spencer seemed to suspect that this is someone who thought you two may have seen something you shouldn’t, not someone who’s now out of jail and holding a grudge.”

Juliet frowned. “But the people from recent cases are in jail _now_.”

The Chief shook her head grimly. “He seems to suspect that it’s not someone that went to jail, it’s someone who’s involved with something but hasn’t quite been caught. And they want to make sure it stays that way.”

Juliet frowned again. _That_ didn’t seem to make much sense. “How would Shawn know…?”

The Chief shrugged. “I didn’t have a chance to talk to him for very long, but you know as well as I do that when Mr. Spencer says something that seems crazy and far-fetched, too often he ends up being spot-on.”

Juliet nodded, considering. That was perhaps the best summation of Shawn—who was really quite impossible to put into words--that she’d heard in a while. “Well, I’ll go take a look at those files, see if I can find anything,” she said.

“Thank you, O’Hara. And try not to worry. We’ll figure out who’s behind this.”

“I know we will.”

“I’ve got some ideas about next steps, but I’m not sure exactly what route to take yet, and I’d like to let you and Mr. Spencer know at the same time when I do.”

Juliet nodded. That made sense.

“But in the meantime, don’t leave the station, please. In fact, don’t even go outside at all. If someone targeted Shawn at home, I don’t want you going anywhere near your place. We don’t know what this bastard is capable of, and until we have a firm plan, I want to keep a close eye on both of you.”

Juliet nodded again, turning to leave. “Roger that.”

Finally, she left the Chief’s office, sinking in her desk chair. It was a lot to take in, from her concern about Shawn to her curiosity about the case, to what next steps the Chief possibly had in mind, to her anxiety about having to work closely with Shawn again on whatever this was…in all of it, she had nearly forgotten that she, too, had been threatened.

Just when it was starting to hit her that _she_ was in danger, too, Buzz burst into the bullpen, running into the Chief’s office. The Chief ran out after him, looking frantic and terrified, with a glance at Juliet out of the corner of her eye as she did so, as if to check if she was still there.

Juliet’s first instinct was to stand to follow the Chief, but then she remembered that she was not to step outside the station. She stood at her desk lamely for a few seconds, unsure what else to do, and then slowly sunk back into her chair, shaking her head to clear it. The Chief would tell her what was going on when she came back inside; there was nothing she could do about whatever it was right now.

And then she heard the explosion, the windows of the station rattling in their frames, the whole building seeming to shudder with the force of it.

 _Oh, God,_ she thought, _The Chief!_


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Juliet found out that she and Shawn are being targeted, she heard an explosion outside the station--right after the Chief and Buzz ran outside. Forced to follow the Chief's instructions to stay inside and out of sight, she's left with more questions than answers, as well as a lot of fear for the lives of her friends...and Shawn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We’re back! Time to find out what the heck happened outside…
> 
> This chapter is also special to me, as it marks me having written over 100,000 words on Ao3! Woohoo!

Immediately, the station burst into activity. Dozens of officers appeared all at once, swarming out the door. Juliet called out to Lassiter, but he yelled “stay back!” at her as he ran out the door, ahead of the pack.

Juliet sank into her desk chair again, wanting desperately to run to the window or _something_ , try and figure out what the heck was going on, but she knew it didn’t make sense to do that. If there had been an explosion outside—and she was almost certain there had been—it was highly possible that it had something to do with what the Chief had just told her, and if so, she needed to stay out of sight of anyone who may have eyes on the station.

The minutes seemed to pass unbelievably slowly. Although Juliet had pulled some old files out to look at them and try and come up with _anything_ on this case, she couldn’t focus on anything. Her mind was outside with the Chief, with her partner, with Shawn, and it was racing a million miles a minute.

She thought back to a few years earlier, when someone had targeted Carlton. The Chief had kept him inside, stuck in the conference room, for _ages_ , and he had been miserable. She’d sympathized then, but she hadn’t really understood what it was like until now. After all, right now it had only been a few minutes, and still she felt like she was losing her mind.

Suddenly, something occurred to her—when the Chief had spoken to her, she had implied that Shawn was on his way to the station to give his statement. What if the explosion she’d heard hadn’t involved the Chief at all? What if—she didn’t want to let herself even think about it—the target of the explosion had once again been _Shawn_?

Juliet felt like she was going to be sick. On the one hand, she couldn’t believe it had taken her as long as it had to realize that it was very possible that Shawn was involved in this second explosion as well, but on the other hand, she desperately wanted to return to a moment earlier, when the thought hadn’t yet crossed her mind, when she wasn’t haunted by the idea of Shawn, bleeding and unconscious, maybe just a few yards away from her now, and yet so impossibly out of reach.

She stood up from her desk. She had half a mind to just run out of the station, her own safety and security be damned—after all, was that not what being a cop was all about, giving up your own safety in favor of someone else’s? And where Shawn was concerned, even despite all that had happened between them, all of the hurt and the pain and the sadness, she knew that she would never hesitate to give up her own life if it meant that he could keep his.

But she knew that running outside would be imprudent. She had no idea what kind of situation she’d be running into, and even for the _most_ skilled cop, that was a terrible idea. Instead, she tried to settle herself by pacing around the bullpen, hoping that the movement might distract her—at least that was something to _do_.

She hated the idea of Lassiter being out there in the fray without her. Even though he was more than capable of handling any situation, and even though he was undoubtedly surrounded by all the officers that had run outside, she couldn’t stomach the thought of anything happening to him while she sat inside, unable to help. She was his _partner_ , after all, but he was so much more than that—one of the most important people in her life, like an older brother, really--and they’d had each other’s backs for seven years. It wasn’t that he couldn’t take care of himself or that she didn’t trust the other officers, but if he was in danger, Juliet would move heaven and earth to stop it in time.

The same was true of the Chief—Juliet couldn’t imagine how she’d feel if it turned out something had happened to her. Karen was her mentor, her friend, so much more than her boss. Lassiter, the Chief, Shawn—they were her _family_ , no matter what happened between them personally, and if any one of them were injured while she sat idly by, she would never forgive herself.

Juliet kept pacing, the faces of Carlton, the Chief, and Shawn cycling through her mind, each with a fresh wave of worry at how little she’d heard from outside, even though she knew, rationally, that only a few minutes had passed. Back and forth, around her desk, in front of the conference room, then the Chief’s office…she tried to focus only on her steps, her movement, hoping that would ground her.

It didn’t help much, though, and she just kept returning to the same worries in her head, Shawn’s face appearing with greater frequency than the others’; never far from her thoughts. She felt a little guilty about how quickly her concern for the Chief and her partner had been replaced almost solely by worries about Shawn, but she told herself that that was just because Shawn had already been targeted today, was already injured, and also because things had been such a mess with him lately.

Finally, at long last, a few officers began to appear in the doorway. Juliet immediately ran to them, desperate for any kind of information. “What happened out there? Is everyone okay? The Chief? Lassiter? Shawn Spencer?”

The throng of officers started to disperse, one of them—a young, new guy, whose name Juliet was much too distressed to remember at the moment—laying a comforting hand on her shoulder. “We were told not to brief you until the Chief had a chance to do so,” he said quietly.

“So she’s alive?” Juliet silently thanked God for the implication.

He nodded. “Yeah, I’m not sure _what_ I’m supposed to tell you, but they’re all alive, they’re okay. I think they should be inside soon, there’s just cleanup and stuff to do. But I know they’ll be bringing Shawn Spencer in in just a minute, as soon as they deem that it’s safe to do so.”

“And he wasn’t hurt again in whatever that explosion was?”

The officer shook his head. “No, it’s my understanding that he wasn’t even here when the explosion happened, he arrived just afterward.”

Juliet sighed in relief. “Oh, thank God.”

“I wish I could tell you more,” he said, “but the Chief was really firm about the fact that we shouldn’t say anything to you until she has a chance to brief you. She should be in a few minutes, I’d guess…”

“Don’t worry about it, you’ve told me enough,” she says, gratefully. “Thank you …,” it comes to her suddenly, “Hernandez, that’s so helpful to me to know all of that.”

He smiled, but she noticed there was something off about it. He definitely still had a lot more information than she did, and whatever he had wasn’t good. “Take care, O’Hara,” he said.

Juliet wanted to keep pacing the hallway as Officer Hernandez walked away, but more officers were beginning to come in now—some covered with a layer of dirt, she noticed—and she knew that it was better to stay out of their way.

Instead of staying by her desk, she compromised—if she wasn’t allowed outside, she could _at least_ sit right by the front door of the station, so she would be able to see her partner, the Chief, and Shawn when they finally came inside. Despite what Hernandez had said (though it had been a little comforting), she wouldn’t trust that they were safe until she saw it with her own two eyes.

Shawn was the first to come through the door, and without even pausing to think about it, without totally looking him over, without considering the fact that they hadn’t had any physical contact at all since the breakup, Juliet ran to him, throwing her arms around him.

“Shawn, oh my God! Thank God you’re okay!”

She felt Shawn relax in her embrace, patting her on the back with one arm while the other hung limply at his side. Suddenly remembering that the Chief had said that his arm was injured, she pulled back.

“Your arm!,” she cried, “I’m sorry, I forgot—I’m just,” she paused, suddenly remembering how much remained unspoken between her and Shawn. “I’m just so glad you’re okay.”

She watched Shawn’s eyes scanning her carefully, as he did anytime she was in danger, as if to confirm that she was really there, really okay. It made her heart ache, seeing the care, the concern for her that was still so present in his eyes, and the way he looked at her made her suddenly self-conscious—it hadn’t been terribly long since they’d broken up, but she had forgotten what it was like when Shawn Spencer fixed all his attention on you. She hadn’t realized how desperately she missed it until now. But in a moment, before she could dwell on it for too long, he seemed satisfied, stepping back, clearing his throat, seeming to remember all at once that she had been worried about him, too—but also that she had asked him for space, even though she was the one who had broken the unspoken ban on contact that had tortured him for weeks.

Shawn smiled. “I’m fine, Jules,” he said at last, answering her comment a little too calmly for her to really believe it. He held up his injured arm, which had been wrapped in a bandage. “You should see the other guy.”

It was a lame attempt at humor, which alarmed her—Shawn was usually much better at coming up with witty lines on his feet, so this did not bode well for him actually _being_ fine. Stepping back further, she examined him, cataloguing the cuts and bruises on his face—no doubt consequences of being in close proximity to the explosion at his dad’s this morning—and trying not to wince at the pain he was clearly in, or at the fact that this was Shawn— _her_ Shawn, no, _not_ her Shawn, not anymore—and she had come so close to losing him this morning. But there was no time for that now, no time to analyze all of the things she felt just in looking at him, not when she had yet to find her partner or the Chief or anyone else. Still, it was a relief to look at him, a relief to feel his warmth and remember that, despite how he looked, he was _alive_.

“Shawn, how do you feel?” she asked, wanting to know if it was really as bad as it looked.

Shawn laughed. “Like something exploded on me.” He shook his head. “Look, Jules, I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. I’m just gonna find an aspirin, hopefully some donuts, and then give my statement, and I’ll be out of here. Gus is already picking up jerk chicken for me on his way over here, so I’ll be good as new in about twenty minutes.”

Juliet nodded, not entirely believing him.

“Not that I’m not good as new _now_ ,” he continued, “you’ll notice none of the debris damaged this hair.” Motioning to his head and smiling, he stepped away from her, just as Lassiter came through the door.

Although she was wholly dissatisfied with her conversation with Shawn, Juliet couldn’t resist turning to Carlton, giving him a once-over like the one she’d given Shawn, although her eyes weren’t nearly as tempted to linger as they had been when Shawn had come through the door. “Carlton! Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, O’Hara,” he said, taking his suit jacket off. “Like always, just a little more aware of the number of sick bastards in this world. Get some coffee, we’re gonna be here awhile.”

“What happened out there?” she asked, certain that he wouldn’t break protocol and tell her, but unable to resist.

He shook his head at her. “O’Hara, I’m sure you already know I can’t tell you that. The Chief is a few minutes behind me, she’ll be in soon.”

Saying nothing further, he turned to follow Shawn down the hallway. “Spencer, it’s statement time. No dilly-dallying.”

She couldn’t hear much of Shawn’s response beyond a whine of protest, but that was enough to make her smile. She was glad to see that the chaos of the morning hadn’t exhausted Shawn to the point where he wouldn’t antagonize Lassiter.

At long last, the Chief appeared, covered in a layer of grime unlike any Juliet had seen on her in the seven years they’d worked together. She shook her head at Juliet as she came in the door. “Sorry to keep you waiting, O’Hara,” she said. “It’s a mess out there. Let me just change my clothes, and then I’ll brief you on what happened. You can wait in my office.”

Nodding, Juliet headed towards the Chief’s office with her, finding the chair in front of her desk to wait in while the Chief grabbed a duffle bag from underneath her desk and headed back out of the office. Juliet drummed her fingers on the edge of the desk, resisting the urge to get up and start pacing again, even though it hadn’t been helpful ten minutes earlier and surely wouldn’t be helpful now.

The Chief returned moments later, immediately noticing Juliet’s fingers idly drumming patterns on her desk. “At ease, O’Hara,” she said, giving her a tight smile.

Juliet smiled weakly in response.

“I know you’re anxious about what happened, and I’m sorry I told everyone to keep you in the dark,” the Chief said. “But I didn’t want anyone to exaggerate what happened out there or give you false information, so I thought it best to wait until I could be the one to tell you myself.”

Juliet nodded, her anxiety skyrocketing. “First,” she asked. “Can you tell me—no one was injured outside?”

The Chief smiled. “I might have known that that would be your first question. No, no, miraculously, no one was hurt.”

Juliet smiled, relief washing over her. “Thank God.”

The Chief gave her another tight smile. “Yes, well, it’s a miracle that no one was _hurt_ , but I’m afraid this is still very serious,” she paused, as if thinking over what she was going to say. “O’Hara, you are, as Mr. Spencer reported, in serious danger,” she paused again, and Juliet tried not to count the seconds as she felt her heart rate increase.

The Chief let out a breath. “You see, O’Hara, someone tried to blow up your car.”

Juliet gasped. Whatever she was expecting, it wasn’t that.

“Luckily, we had a witness,” the Chief said. “McNab was returning from his break and thought he saw someone crouching by your car. Having responded to the call at Henry Spencer’s house this morning, he was immediately suspicious. The suspect was gone before McNab could get to your car, but he immediately got the bomb squad and then came to find me.”

Juliet shook her head in astonishment. “Good work, Buzz.”

The Chief nodded solemnly. “Yes, without him, this could have been much worse.”

Juliet frowned, realizing something. “But then, the explosion that I heard?”

“The bomb squad was able to get the device away from your car,” the Chief said, “but it detonated before we could get it completely safely extricated. Some of our extrication equipment was damaged in the explosion, but thankfully, all personnel were at a safe distance.”

Juliet nodded again.

“Obviously, some of the dirt and debris from the explosion fell on some of us,” the Chief said, “but all in all, we were very lucky. Had you touched your car, the explosion would have certainly been fatal.”

Juliet swallowed. “Did Buzz happen to see anything about the perp? Anything that might help us identify him?”

“He didn’t get a very close look, as he was driving by when he caught a glimpse of him,” she said, “but he thinks he had a shaved head, with some kind of tattoo on his head. Does that mean anything to you?”

Juliet shook her head. “I wish it did,” she said, “but no one immediately comes to mind. I haven’t had time to get too deep into the files. Shawn might have something, though. He’s better with those details.”

“I haven’t had a chance to ask him yet,” the Chief said. “He arrived on the scene when it was at the height of chaos, and, as I’m sure you’d expect, it was all we could do to keep him out of the fray, especially once he realized we were surrounding your car.”

Juliet nodded. “Sounds about right. Were there any other clues this time, like the note Shawn found earlier?”

“Nothing as of yet. We still have officers scouring the scene, though, and your partner conducted a search, of course, before he let anyone else around.”

Juliet smiled. There was something comforting, in all the chaos and mayhem, to the fact that Shawn and Carlton had each behaved exactly as expected.

“As you can imagine, O’Hara, we’re still trying to figure out how to proceed,” the Chief said. “I’ve got some idea about next steps, but nothing definitive. Obviously, our first priority is keeping you and Mr. Spencer safe, and that may mean taking extraordinary measures.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not sure yet,” she responded. “But the _last_ thing we want is Mr. Spencer taking matters into his own hands, which we both know he is wont to do. So, whatever we do, we need to ensure that we keep eyes on him and keep him secure. The usual recklessness won’t cut it, not with the very clear and present danger to you both.”

Juliet nodded. “Well, whatever it is, I’m on board,” she said. “For now, I can keep looking at those files. Maybe the details Buzz noticed will turn something up. Unless there’s something else you think I should do first?”

“Well, we need to wait for Mr. Spencer to finish his statement from this morning, and there’s no firm plan for next steps yet,” Chief Vick said. “But clearly, I was right about cautioning you to stay inside before. Until I put something together to keep you and Mr. Spencer safe, I need you to stay here. And if you see Mr. Spencer start to disobey that order, by all means, stop him. We do not have the time to lose on his antics, not when these psychos are clearly ready to do whatever it takes to take you two down.”

Juliet nodded, but didn’t acknowledge the instruction. “You said psychos,” she said slowly. “Does that mean you suspect there’s more than one?”

“Not necessarily, although with explosives of that sort, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some sort of collaboration involved. But I didn’t mean anything by my use of that term, O’Hara, other than that whoever behind this is absolutely sick, and very, very dangerous.”

Juliet nodded again, considering the chief’s words. Without getting a look at the explosives herself, and still having precious little information, there was no reason for her to have any suspicion about how many perps were involved, but she got the inexplicable feeling that there was more than one person at play here.

“Can I count on you to keep Mr. Spencer in line while I come up with something, O’Hara?” the chief asked, having clearly noticed that Juliet hadn’t acknowledged her instruction and calling Juliet’s attention back to her.

Juliet smiled. “That’s a tall order when it comes to Shawn, but yes, I’ll do my very best to keep him…close by.”

Despite the fear and adrenaline coursing through her, it was not lost on Juliet that this case was certain to be the closest she’d worked with Shawn since everything happened, which was both terrifying and…a teeny, tiny bit exhilarating? She rolled her eyes at herself in her head. This was _so_ not the time to be thinking about all of that. And she had no reason to believe that anything would change between them. So they’d almost died. Okay. So what? They almost died nearly every day, that didn’t mean that she could just up and forgive him for everything he’d put her through.

And yet, she thought again of how relieved she’d felt when he’d finally come through the door of the station. In that moment, she hadn’t thought for even a second about the last few weeks of sadness and hurt between them, she’d just wrapped her arms around him, the way that she—if she was honest with herself—had been tempted to do for a long while now, and certainly since she’d heard about what had happened this morning.

When he’d come through that door, it hadn’t really mattered, suddenly, that there was so much they hadn’t said to each other. All that had mattered was that Shawn was alive, and relatively unscathed, and that she didn’t have to wrestle with the idea of losing him when their last words to each other hadn’t exactly been kind. She didn’t know what to make of all of that, and she certainly wasn’t suddenly just _ready_ to get back together, but she knew she’d have to think about that a little more. Somehow, in seeing Shawn be safe and alive after worrying about him so much, her hurt from the last several weeks had just…lessened. Significantly.

If they got out of the rest of this alive, she was probably going to have to deal with that.

“Good,” the Chief said. “Then you’re dismissed, for now. I’ll come up with something while we wait for Mr. Spencer to be done with his statement, and then I’ll brief you both on what happens next.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not as much of a cliffhanger this week, but I think you’ll be surprised what happens next week. Hope you enjoyed this monster of a chapter—next week’s should be much shorter! Please let me know what you thought in the comments, I’d love to hear feedback!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Chief makes a game plan. Shawn is quiet. Juliet is...all over the place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really enjoying writing the Karen & Jules relationship, as you’ll see…

“A safehouse? _Really?_ "

“We don’t have a choice, O’Hara. You’re both deeply involved in this, and I no longer feel comfortable with you returning to your homes at night. And with the threat to the station today, we can’t necessarily protect you here, either.”

Juliet hazarded a glance at Shawn. She could swear she saw a glimmer of something like excitement in his eyes, before it was replaced by his best approximation of a blank expression. But he couldn’t hide the hint of amusement in his eyes from her, and she hated that she could still read him well enough to recognize it. _Only, I can’t read him that well_ , she reminded herself, _if I could, I would’ve known what he was really like_. But that wasn’t entirely fair, she knew, and regardless, there was no time to dwell on it now, not with what the Chief was asking of her.

“But Chief, are you sure--?” Juliet couldn’t think of a valid reason to argue with the Chief, especially after the enormous risk Chief Vick had just undertaken on her behalf, without having to state the obvious: _I don’t feel comfortable being around Shawn when I know that I still love him and also know that my resolve is starting to fade and_ also _he still lied to me._

“O’Hara, I don’t know what else to do. The two of you will be safe there, and I will have Lassiter and the others here working to find these psychopaths. We’ll have people stationed to watch out around the house and everything; it’s the only way I can think of to keep the two of you safe, and we _need you safe_.”

“But we won’t even be able to work on the case, if we’re locked away in some house somewhere!” Juliet exclaimed. She knew she sounded childish, but at the moment she couldn’t bring herself to care. She’d never been one to watch action from the sidelines, and now that the stakes were this high, she hated the thought that she wouldn’t be able to investigate at all much more than she hated the idea of the safehouse.

“Even if I didn’t send you to the safehouse, there would be little that you could do,” the Chief replied. “I don’t want the two of you going out into the field, it’s too dangerous. And the fact that you’re both so highly at risk means that there’s a bit of a conflict of interest. Keeping you somewhere safe isn’t just the best option—it’s the only one.”

Juliet wanted to protest again, but the finality with which the Chief had responded made it seem futile. Still, the prospect of being stuck in a house with Shawn while someone tried to kill both of them was sending her nerves into overdrive.

Shawn stayed quiet, which further unnerved Juliet. Shawn was _never_ quiet, and she didn’t know how to interpret it. She looked over at him, hoping to read something else on his face, but he wasn’t looking at her, keeping a respectful distance just as he had ever since she’d requested it. Part of her regretted giving that directive now, while the other part of her desperately hoped he’d maintain that distance in the safehouse.

“Mr. Spencer,” said the Chief, seeming to pick up on the same silence Juliet had noticed, “you’re awfully quiet.”

Shawn shrugged. “If this is what we have to do, it’s what we have to do,” he says. “I want Jules to be safe, and I’m not exactly looking to kick the bucket today, either.”

“Don’t you have _anything_ on the guys that are doing this?” the Chief asked.

Shawn hesitated, glancing at Juliet for just a half-second before responding. “I wish I did, Chief. I’ll let you know as soon as the spirits—uh, as soon as I have any information that might help.”

“See that you do,” she said, ignoring his momentary stumble. “Okay, then, a car will be here to pick you up in an hour. There will be several cars, acting as decoys in case there are eyes on the station.”

“What kind of cars?” Shawn asked, almost too quickly, like something had just occurred to him. _He has something_ , Juliet thought.

“Prison transport vans. It makes the most sense.”

“Because we’re going to prison?” Juliet was surprised at the sound of her own voice—she’d only meant to mutter that--and at the joke that was so very much like one Shawn would have made. Sure enough, she heard a quiet snort from his direction.

“ _No_ , O’Hara,” Chief Vick answered, looking sternly at her, but very clearly trying not to smile. “Because it’s much less suspicious to transport people in transport vans than if we threw you in the back of a squad car. Plus, the windows are tinted. We will be transporting each of you separately, and taking several people to ride in the vans with each of you, so hopefully you can slip out of here unnoticed.”

Shawn nodded, his face not betraying anything. If he did have something on this, Juliet hoped he would share it with her later. Despite her current discomfort with him, they still worked well together. They always had. And judging from the look on his face at this moment, he wasn’t any happier about the arrangement than she was. What they really needed to avoid was Shawn slipping away to work on his own terms, as he often did. Hopefully the fact that she now understood how he did what he did might prevent that. _Apparently_ , she thought grimly, _that’s the silver lining to all of this_.

But besides, she remembered, sobered by a glance and Shawn’s bandaged arm, Shawn was already injured, and they couldn’t afford for him to get hurt again. Next time, it might be much worse than his arm.

Seeming to read her mind again, the Chief continued. “Mr. Spencer, if you have no objections, you’re dismissed. You can tell Mr. Guster and your father where you’re going when they get here, but no one else, please. And stay off your personal phone, we don’t know what’s being monitored.”

“Roger that, Chief,” Shawn said, turning to leave, trying to put on his usual cheerful face, though Juliet could see very clearly that he was faking. Juliet turned to follow him out.

“O’Hara, stay back with me, please.”

Juliet waited as Shawn initially froze, as though contemplating asking to stay and listen to whatever the Chief was about to say, and then seemed to think better of it, dutifully leaving the room, still uncharacteristically quiet. For the millionth time since she’d met him, Juliet wished she knew what he was thinking. _If I asked him, he probably wouldn’t be honest about it_ , she thought bitterly, before she could stop herself.

“O’Hara, there’s one other thing,” the Chief said cautiously. “And I didn’t want to say this in front of Mr. Spencer, since I know there have been…complications between the two of you recently.”

Juliet sighed. “Oh, boy. What is it, Chief?”

The Chief hesitated, which both surprised and worried Juliet. “I just want to offer you a small word of warning. It’s nothing major, not in comparison to everything we have going on, but the thing about the safehouse is...it’s awfully small. It’s intentionally small, for situations like this, when you need to be looking out for each other, and so that _we_ can keep a better eye on you, but I’m afraid you and Mr. Spencer will be in tight quarters.”

Juliet bit her lip, an uneasy feeling that was somehow not unlike butterflies building in her stomach. “How tight?”

“Not _terribly_ , but small enough that I wanted you to know in advance. You’ll have a small living room and a kitchen, but only one bathroom, and the bedroom is…shared, as well.”

Juliet frowned. “But there’s _always_ more than one person staying there when it’s being used, how is that even possible?”

“Oh, don’t worry, there are two beds in the bedroom. It’s quite a large room, like a hotel room. But that way, whoever is being guarded can have someone immediately in the same room as them. Since the two of you are keeping eyes on each other…”

“I understand,” Juliet said.

The Chief looked sympathetic. “Look, O’Hara, I know this isn’t ideal, and I don’t want to put you in an uncomfortable position, but I don’t know what else to do. It’s possible we can try and have you stay in separate locations if you _really_ think you’re not up to the task, but I’m just not sure we have the manpower to put someone with each of you and continue to monitor what’s going on here. It’s much easier to send several people to keep watch at one location than a few at two separate ones. Plus, the two of you have experience protecting each other, and no one is a better match for Mr. Spencer’s…idiosyncrasies…than you.”

Juliet sighed, raising her eyebrows. “I guess that’s true.”

“O’Hara, we _can_ try and arrange separate housing if you think that you need it. I can’t guarantee anything, but--.”

Juliet hesitated, just for a moment. “No, Chief. That won’t be necessary.”

“Well, good. I know things with Mr. Spencer are difficult, but the important thing is keeping both of you safe. I would personally rather have you stay in the same place for your own protection, and this seems to make the most sense, as long as you don’t feel like it will be too much.” The Chief looked apologetic, but Juliet could tell that it would cause a lot more trouble than she was trying to let on if she didn’t agree to stay with Shawn.

“No, Chief. I can handle this. I may not be in the best place with Shawn right now, but I’ll feel safer knowing that he is.”

The Chief gave her an odd look, seeming to understand more than Juliet was trying to give away. “Okay then, if you’re sure.”

“I’m sure,” she replied, feeling very, very unsure.

“Then you’re dismissed.”

Juliet turned and made for the door, her brain in a sort of fog. She hated that part of her—a part of her that she was trying desperately to keep at bay--was a little bit excited. She certainly wasn’t ready to forgive Shawn, but she hadn’t been alone with him in weeks, and the part of her that missed him—which was _most_ of her, if she was being honest with herself—was a little thrilled to have a reason to spend time in such close proximity to him.

The other part of her--the wiser part, perhaps--was scared, both of being by herself with Shawn again, and also, of course, of the situation that they were in. It was very possible, after all, that the safehouse would not be entirely safe at all. If someone had eyes on the station, and had known that Shawn was living at his dad’s, how easy would it be for them to follow the prison transport vans to wherever the safehouse was located?

“Oh, O’Hara?” the Chief asked, just as she was about to walk out the door.

“Yes?” she asked, turning around.

“Just—be careful,” the Chief said, and something on her face made Juliet wonder if she was talking about the suspects that threatened them or about something else entirely. “I really am sorry about all of this.”

“Nothing to be sorry about, Chief,” Juliet said. “This is just the situation we’re in, and it’s what we have to do. I know that. Shawn and I are adults, I’m sure we’ll handle it.”

The Chief nodded, giving Juliet a soft smile. “I look forward to having the two of you back.”

It was later, much later, as Juliet made her final preparations to leave, that she paused to consider those words. _You’re being ridiculous_ , she told herself. Clearly, the Chief had just meant that she wanted her and Shawn to return safely—as individuals, as people. And yet, the part of her that she was trying to ignore, the part of her that missed Shawn so badly she could hardly breathe, seemed to wonder— _the two of us, back as individuals, or back…together_?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit more of a filler chapter this week to get us from A to B, but some of my favorite (and very Shules) chapters (and some bad guys) coming your way soon…
> 
> Thanks so much for reading and special thanks to those of you who have left kudos, comments, or have followed along so far! I really appreciate you! As always, I would really love to hear any comments or thoughts you have!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Four: In which someone apologizes. Someone can’t sleep. Shawn’s memory fails…kind of. Juliet eats a pop-tart with questionable symbolism. And it all takes place in a house that is just too small. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beginning to head into some of my favorite chapters…I hope you enjoy this!

The Chief had not undersold just how small the safehouse was. Juliet arrived a few minutes before Shawn, just long enough to stash her bag in the bedroom—two beds, like the Chief had promised—and take a cautious look around, trying to get a feel for what it would be like to live here for however long they had to stay.

The house was simple and plain, with few windows—which was for the best, Juliet observed, even knowing that the panes were made of bullet-resistant glass. The kitchen was small, decently stocked— _Shawn will be pleased they remembered to give us pineapples_ , she thinks, glancing at the fruit on the counter--and there was a pleasant enough living room, with two small couches and an old television.

When Shawn arrived, his demeanor hadn’t changed much from the Chief’s office. “So, this is it, huh? Home sweet home?” he asks, waving his hand around the living room.

Juliet nods. “Yep. This is it. It’s not much, but at least it’ll be safe, hopefully.”

Shawn raises his eyebrows but doesn’t say anything. After a moment, he wanders into the kitchen, opening and closing cabinets as he examines their contents, like she had done only moments before.

He shut the pantry with a bang. “Unbelievable!” he exclaims.

Juliet looks up at him, alarmed. “What?”

“No Froot Loops?” he cries, indignant. “And here I thought they were interested in my survival.”

She sighs. “Shawn, don’t do that. Come on. Is it too much to ask for you to take _this_ seriously?”

He frowns. “I take my Froot Loops very seriously, Jules. You know that. Speaking of which, it was supposed to be my weekend with them this weekend, given our custody arrangement, so the least the SBPD could’ve done is brought our boxes here--.”

He falls silent at the look on Juliet’s face. She just shakes her head silently at him. Yes, there had been a few moments today when she had felt herself softening towards him, but _this_ moment was a reminder of all the problems she still had with him. He wasn’t taking this seriously, just like he hadn’t taken their relationship seriously, or at least seriously enough to be honest with her, and in moments like this, that still stung. It stung especially since one of the things that had endeared her to Shawn in the first place—way back before they were together—was how he had been the first to take her opinions seriously into consideration when working on a case. He had trusted her, believed in her, before anyone in the department had, and so she never would have expected that his inability to really trust her, really give her enough credit to be honest with her, would be exactly what caused their downfall.

Shaking her head to clear it, Juliet did her best to wipe the hurt from her face, not that Shawn—who was probably still thinking about Froot Loops—would have noticed it. She tried to put herself back in cop mode, wrenching herself away from the part of her that wanted to just have it out with Shawn, make him understand how much he had hurt her. _Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned._ Well, not now. Not today. This wasn’t the time for that. If Shawn wasn’t going to be an adult, she would have to take charge. Not that that was much of a surprise.

“I know this is a safehouse, but we should still stay away from the windows,” she says, coaxing her voice into a crisp, businesslike tone. It only works for a moment before reality leaks out. “I know there are officers guarding this place, and that the whole _point_ is to have it be a normal-looking house, so we’re hidden in plain sight, but I just have a bad feeling about this.”

He sighs, and it almost sounds a little bit like relief. “I do too,” he says, and she looks at him in surprise, shocked to see the earnestness and honesty that has appeared on his face. “I didn’t want to say anything at the station, but I don’t feel safe here, Jules. I feel like it’s too obvious, the way we were transported, and we _know_ there were eyes on the station…”

She nods. “Well, we have to hope that if someone _is_ coming after us, we’ll have enough warning to figure it out,” she says. “Plus, _we_ have eyes on this house, so hopefully our backup will be enough to stop a threat in time.”

“I just hate being helpless like this,” he says, and she can see his usual energy coming off of him in waves as he wrings his hands. “I want to solve this—I know I can solve this—but I’m missing _something_ , and if I could only get out there and see--.”

“Shawn,” she says firmly. “Don’t even entertain that thought.”

“I know, I know,” he says, waving his hand. “I’m not stupid, I know we’re stuck in here as long as it takes for Lassie to solve it and find them, but…,” he sighed. “This is killing me, being shut up in here and having Gus and my dad and…even Lassie, out there.”

“I know,” she says. And she _does_ know. It’s killing her, too.

He shakes his head. “All I can say is, thank God you’re in here with me, Jules. I couldn’t take it if you were out there, too.”

“I know,” she says softly—he’s surprised her again--but she turns her face away from him so he can’t see the color rising in her cheeks.

Shawn flops onto the couch with some pop-tarts he grabbed from the kitchen, staying quiet for a moment. Then he says, “I know there wasn’t time to make much headway at the station, but did you see anything? In our files?”

She shakes her head, sitting down on the adjacent couch. “I wish I did, but I have no idea who’s behind this.”

He sighs. “There’s something—I know I know _something_ , but I can’t piece it together.”

“I saw you think of something,” she says slowly, remembering, “in the Chief’s office. Something with the cars?”

He nods. “I should’ve known you’d pick up on that. It triggered _something_ —a memory, kind of, but I can’t place it. Maybe it’s that I was knocked out earlier—sometimes it takes a little while, if I’ve had a head injury, but _I can’t place it_ , and that _never_ happens.”

Juliet takes a deep breath. This is the closest they’ve ever _really_ come to talking about how Shawn does what he does since the night everything had fallen apart. “Do you—do you see anything?” she asks. “I mean, I know it’s not supernatural, it’s not _visions_ ,” she pauses, needing a break, the words feeling heavy on her tongue, “but your memory—do you have flashes of anything?”

Shawn looks heartbroken by the question, and she fights the sudden urge to take it back, say something comforting, pull them out of this issue he now has to address. “I get bits of something,” he says finally, and he looks so ashamed when he’s talking about it that for a moment, she doesn’t care that she’s still hurt, she just feels her heart break again for him.

“This morning, I got a—a flash of a memory, just before the explosion. A warehouse, we were walking into a warehouse, and we passed a van on the way in—the getaway van, I think, for whoever we found inside. You were there, and so was I, but I can’t place it. I can’t remember what we were looking at, or who, or why we were there. And it’s all blurry…it’s _never_ been blurry, not like this. It must be my head injury, this has never happened before. I’ve never…I’ve never been unable to place something like this. And it’s _killing_ me. I _know_ I know something else. I have to! But I just can’t…remember.” He whispers the last word, looking tortured by it, and she unconsciously moves closer to him, hating to see him in pain.

“In the Chief’s office,” he continues, “I was hoping what she said would trigger something else, because just before the explosion this morning was when I had the flash of walking past the van outside the warehouse, but it didn’t work. I don’t—I don’t know how to make it work, not this time.”

She sighs, the part of her that hates to see him hurt wanting to make this easier on him. “Maybe it will come after you’ve had some rest.”

He shakes his head, opening his mouth as if to say something, and then closing it again, no sound coming out. After a long, silent moment, he tries again. “I wish I’d never lied to you,” he says, and her expression softens in surprise as she looks at him, the sadness and regret so clear on his face. Perhaps he does understand how much he hurt her, after all. There seems no other explanation for the profound guilt on his face.

He laughs a little, but without humor, before continuing. “I mean, right now I wish I’d never had to lie, I wish it was all real, because then I’d know what the heck I’m supposed to be seeing in that memory…” He pauses, then continues again, just as gently as before, not meeting her eyes. “But more than that, I wish—I wish I’d never lied to _you_.”

“Shawn,” she says softly, wanting to say something to take his hurt, his guilt, away, even though she knows she’s still hurt by the lie, too.

He shakes his head, holding up his hand. “Jules, you don’t have to say anything. I know. I’m—God, I’m so sorry. You don’t have to say anything to make it better. It’s my fault.”

His voice nearly breaks on the last words again, and she can’t take it. “Shawn, I’ve been hard on you.” It’s true. It’s not an apology—not quite—and it’s certainly not telling him that it’s okay, what he’s done, but it’s a start.

He shakes his head again. “You haven’t done anything I didn’t deserve. I _lied_ to you, Jules. For a long time.”

She nods, and the hurt is still there. But not all of it. No, in this moment, she thinks maybe it hurts worse to see him this broken, see how much hurt his lie has caused him.

“I just want to say, Jules,” he says, “and I don’t want you to feel like you have to respond to this, I just want to say it--,” he stops, looking at her.

She nods for him to continue.

“If I could go back, do it all over again, I never would have done that to you. I never would have let you down like that, and you deserve so much better than how I treated you. You still deserve so much better than…me.”

She shakes her head again and the words are coming before she even knows quite what she means by them. _“Shawn, no_.”

He holds up his hand again, “No, Jules, I mean what I said, and I don’t want you to try and fix it, or try and make me feel better right now. I just need you to know.”

She nods. “I know you mean that, Shawn.” Part of her is glad that he asked her not to say anything; she doesn’t know what she would _want_ to say. It’s not _okay_ , what he did, and there’s still hurt there, even if it’s lessening in every moment that she spends with him. But he _knows_ that, knows that she’s still hurting, and he isn’t trying to convince her to take him back anymore. He just looks repentant, and a little…defeated.

And it’s all she can do to keep from reaching out to wrap her arms around him, to comfort him, anything to take that look off his face--the look that is shattering her. 

They’re silent for a few long moments, not looking at each other, the room steadily growing darker around them as night comes in earnest. After several minutes, Shawn opens the pop-tart package, automatically reaching over and handing her one, while he bites into the other.

She holds the pop-tart uncertainly in her hands—she doesn’t feel like eating--and he looks over at her. “You have to eat, Jules,” he says firmly. “I know today’s been a lot, but you’ve gotta get something in your system.”

She takes a bite, and he nods his approval. She feels a small part of her soften a little at his concern. She wonders if he chose the strawberry pop-tarts out of everything in the pantry because he remembers they are her favorite, hoping he could get her to eat if he picked something she loved. After all, she’s never seen _him_ eat a pop-tart before this moment, avoiding them on principle due to the lack of a certain tropical fruit in the flavor line-up available. She almost smiles, thinking about a moment in the grocery store, months ago, when he’d aired his grievances against Kellogg for their sin of omission to her in the pop-tart aisle, trying to convince her to pick a worthier snack.

She glances over at him out of the corner of her eye. It’s still _so hard_ to look at him, especially with all that he’s just told her, with how much she just wanted to hold him as he apologized to her. There’s still anger in her, there’s still not quite _trust_ , but he could have deflected tonight, could have ranted about pop-tarts, or something equally stupid, and he didn’t. Instead, he chose _her_ favorite snack, completely ignoring the pineapple on the kitchen counter, and he apologized to her, and he chose to be honest in a way she’d never seen before.

The apology didn’t erase the hurt, though. She knows that. And yet, it wasn’t futile, either. But if only it hadn’t happened _today_ , when she can’t even begin to process it, when they both almost died today, they’re both exhausted, they have almost no leads, and, above all, they’re _still_ in imminent danger.

She shakes her head, makes herself eat the pop-tart, trying to let it _just be a pop-tart_ , and feeling stupid for even having to tell herself that it’s just a pop-tart. But that helps. If her brain is addled enough to expend so much energy on a stupid toaster pastry, it’s certainly not a good time to make any radical, life-altering decisions, even though every time she glances at the man on the couch next to hers, her heart yearns a little more. She pushes the ache away every time she feels it tug. There’s no time. She has to think about the case.

They both stay quiet for a long while when they finish eating, neither of them even bothering to turn on the TV. Juliet is trying to go through all her recent cases in her mind, trying to pinpoint the one Shawn’s—well, vision seems ironically the most fitting word— _memory_ could have come from, but she came up with nothing. She wonders what Shawn is thinking about, but she doesn’t ask.

Eventually, Shawn reaches over, turns on a lamp, but they still don’t speak to one another, each lost in their own thoughts and in the exhaustion of the day. Finally, out of the corner of her eye, she sees Shawn’s head start to droop as he begins to fall asleep.

“We should go to bed,” she says, standing up and startling him before he can fully fall asleep. “Come on.”

“Into the bedroom?” he asks, daring to joke, a playful grin on his face, his eyes a little bleary, “wow, Jules, didn’t expect _that_ from you.”

She rolls her eyes in response. “There’s one bedroom, Shawn, I’m not about to make you sleep on the couch.”

“But you’re sure you’re…comfortable with that?” His voice is gentle, and she knows him well enough to read the thought he’s not saying. _It’s okay if you say no._ Part of her melts a little at how respectful he’s being, letting her dictate all the terms, just like she’d asked when this all began. It makes the part of her that just wants to take him back swell a little bit, tempting her to just break down the barrier, just pull him into her arms right then.

Instead, she deflects, only vaguely answering the question. “Shawn, we’re both adults. It’s not like we’re staying in the same bed,” she says, rolling her eyes again. “We’ll be fine. Plus, this way, if something happens, we’ll both be in the same room. The Chief wanted us to stick together, that’s why she put us in this house.”

Shawn nods, saying nothing else. She heads into the bathroom to change first, and it feels strange, the need for privacy in front of Shawn, but it’s the right thing. When they’ve both changed clothes, they brush their teeth together silently, side by side in the small bathroom, and the small, familiar intimacy makes her heart ache. She remembers how Shawn used to reach over affectionately sometimes, when they used to do this every night, tuck her hair behind her ear as she brushed her teeth, and she tries to push the memory away. She catches a momentary glance of Shawn in the mirror, though, a delicate blush creeping up on his cheeks, and she wonders if he’s thinking about it too.

They don’t talk much as they get in bed, and Juliet wonders if Shawn feels as awkward as she does. It’s strange, being back under the same roof under such different circumstances, but she still feels comforted knowing that Shawn is nearby, even with everything that has happened. And considering the events of today, she feels _much_ better knowing that he’s here in the room with her.

As Juliet leans towards the bedside table between their beds to turn out the lamp, Shawn says, “Um, I might have to get up in the middle of the night to take another aspirin—for my arm, you know. I’ll try really hard not to wake you up, but just…don’t be alarmed if you hear movement, okay?”

“Why don’t you just put it on the bedside table?” she asks, motioning towards the table, where Shawn already has a water glass out.

He chuckles lightly. “Gus has this thing about how you shouldn’t keep drugs next to your bed. It’s probably because that dude moves so much in his sleep, he’d probably end up downing a bottle by mistake, but he always warns me not to do it, and I usually don’t listen long enough to actually listen to the _why_ …” he trails off, shrugging. “Anyway, Gus told me I’d better take care of myself and not,” he makes air quotes and mimics Gus’ voice, “cause a bunch of problems for Juliet’, so even though I think it’s absolutely _unfair_ that he assumed I would create a bunch of issues, I figure I can at _least_ do that one thing for him.”

Juliet laughs. “Well, I’ll be sure to tell him how obedient you were.”

Shawn heaves a dramatic sigh. “He won’t believe it, oh he of little faith.”

She smiles. “You ready to turn out the light?”

He nods, and she looks over at him for a moment. It’s so strange to be sleeping so near to him, and yet so very far apart. She’s surprised by the sudden yearning she feels—although she’s felt herself being pulled closer to him several times over the course of the day, it’s still surprising how strong the pull feels now, like if she isn’t _very_ careful, she’ll end up curled up next to him.

He clears his throat suddenly and she blushes as she realizes she’s been staring, the light still on between them.

“Well, goodnight,” she says awkwardly, avoiding his eyes, hoping he doesn’t notice her blushing in the dim light.

“’Night, Jules,” he says, and she can hear the grin in his voice. Clearly, he had noticed the way she looked at him, and she blushes even deeper as she turns the light out, plunging the room into darkness.

Silence falls over the room, but Juliet lies awake, staring at the ceiling. It _is_ earlier than she usually goes to bed, after all, but it’s been a long day, and she’s never felt more overwhelmed or emotionally exhausted. She lies awake for a long time, the fear and panic she’d built up and pushed away all day finally beginning to catch up with her. She has half a mind to see if Shawn’s still awake, see if he can offer her some reassurance, but she can hear his breathing, slow and even, a sound almost comforting itself in its familiarity, if it didn’t break her heart a little to have to strain her ears to hear it across the distance between them, and she knows he’s fallen asleep.

Rolling over, she closes her eyes, trying to think of something else— _anything_ else—to distract herself. Finally, at long last, she falls into a restless sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A Shules-ish chapter, and there’s more of that to come! Hope you liked this chapter! I’m really looking forward to the action coming soon! Thank you so much for reading and following along! As always, I would absolutely love to read any thoughts you have. Special thanks to those of you who have left kudos and comments so far—I’m so glad you’re enjoying this, and reading your comments makes my day!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Five: In which Juliet has a nightmare, Shawn needs an aspirin, and Juliet is still so very much at war, but whether it’s with Shawn or herself, she’s no longer sure. Shawn wakes up—one, two…then three times, yet Juliet is the first to rise…and fall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pals, this is my favorite chapter so far, and also the one that gave me the idea for this whole story. I really hope you like it as much as I liked writing it!

Shawn wakes up with a start, glancing at the clock—2:28am—as he reaches over to the bedside table to grab his glass of water. But he’s forgotten about his injury, and pain blooms suddenly in his arm, shooting up towards his shoulder.

It takes a second for him to realize that it’s not the pain or his thirst that has woken him, though.

No, instead, it’s a soft, muffled noise, coming from the far side of the bed across from his. He knows instantly what it is, and it breaks his heart the second he recognizes it.

“Jules?” he whispers.

She doesn’t respond, and he wonders if maybe she’s focusing so much on trying to muffle her crying that she doesn’t hear him. He pulls his sheet away, ignoring the pain blossoming up his arm at the sudden movement, and gets out of bed.

Gingerly, he sits on the edge of her bed, as far from her as he could be while still being on the same bed—she’d rolled over to the far side. He’s close enough now to reach her, but hopefully far away enough as not to startle her. He keeps his good hand on his lap, though, his injured arm hanging close to his chest in the sling.

“Hey, Jules, you okay?” he whispers, hoping he’s close enough now for her to hear him.

The muffled crying stops for a moment, and Juliet slowly turns over to face him, streaks of tears on her face. It breaks his heart.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’m crying, this is stupid,” she says, wiping at her eyes.

“Hey, hey, shush. It’s not stupid.”

“I couldn’t sleep and then I had a nightmare about the bomb at the station and I just…got scared,” she says softly.

“Jules, you’d be crazy if you _weren’t_ scared,” he says. He’s next to her on the bed now, and he wants more than anything to reach out, touch her, comfort her, like he’s been dying to all day, but he doesn’t want to cross that line unless he’s sure she’s ready for it.

She lets out a shaky breath. “I’m sorry, Shawn, you’re the one who’s injured, and the bomb actually went off _in front of you_ today, and we should be getting your medicine right about now anyway--,” she starts to sit up, to get out of bed and get the aspirin for Shawn.

A gentle hand on her shoulder stops her. “I’m fine, Jules,” Shawn says, his voice gentle and concerned. “Don’t worry about me right now.”

She looks up at him. It had been a long time since she’d allowed herself to meet Shawn’s eyes, and as she looked at him now, she remembered why. Shawn’s gaze was saturated with so much love, so much genuine concern for her, that she felt something break inside of her. He was right there, his hand on her shoulder, but she missed him so much it was all she could do to keep from crying out with the pain of it.

There was pain in his eyes, too; she could see it. And something told her that it had nothing to do with his injury. No, in this moment, she was pretty sure that he was hurting for the same reason she was.

“Jules,” he says softly. “It’s okay for you not to be okay. You don’t have to be this strong all the time. Not…not here.”

She nods, sniffling a little, and wipes at her eyes, not saying anything for a moment as they sit in the darkness. She keeps thinking of the look in his eyes when she’d looked up at him. _He loves me_ , she thinks, and she knows—even in all the lies—that it’s true. And it’s that—more than the fear, more than anything else—that convinces her to let her guard down, just a little, just for a moment, just for tonight. Maybe Shawn is right, after all. Maybe here, with him, just for right now, she can let herself have the comfort she needs so badly.

“Shawn?” there’s nervousness in her voice, and he’s not sure if it’s there because of the dream she just had or because she is scared of what she’s about to say. “Would you—would you just stay here? Next to me?”

Shawn lets out a breath, something like relief washing over him. “Of course, Jules, if you’re sure you want me here.”

“I--I want you here,” she says softly, and something in his heart surges at those words. It’s not exactly what he wants—this is just a moment of fear, a moment when she needs to be comforted, nothing more—but it feels almost like the start of something, and the fragile hope that’s seeping into his chest feels like something he can hold onto when she inevitably pushes him away again.

They lie flat on their backs, and the space between them feels impossibly wide to Juliet. She knows, as usual, that Shawn is just trying to respect the boundaries she set, and she knows that if she reached across them just now—like she’s dying to do—he’ll reach back. She lies awake for several moments thinking about it, contemplating. She’s not sure it’s a good idea. She doesn’t want to lead him on, after all.

And yet, at the same time, she’s desperate for him, desperate for the comfort only he has ever been able to give her, desperate to let him hold her, just like he used to when she’d wake up screaming from the Yin nightmares, and suddenly she’s having trouble remembering exactly _why_ it would be such a bad idea.

Eventually, she remembers that they are in a crazy situation, in this moment that they never could have predicted. In another minute, they could wake up, find that there could be a murderer at the door. Hell, they could never wake up again.

Wordlessly, she reaches her arm out, finds his good hand, threading her fingers in his. He doesn’t say anything, but squeezes her hand, his touch warm and eager. She doesn’t know what to make of it, but the feeling of relief in the room is almost tangible. All is not well between them—it’s still so very far from that—but this feels right.

But she still wants him to know—it isn’t the end of the tension. She’s not taking him back. This is a lapse, a momentary need for comfort. “Shawn?” she whispers into the darkness, not knowing quite how to say it, when his hand is still in hers and everything in her is screaming out to move closer to him than that. “This isn’t—what I mean is, I don’t want to—we’re not--,” she sighs, pausing. “I’m just--,” she starts again.

“Scared,” he finishes softly. “I know. It’s okay.”

She knows him well enough to hear the sadness in it.

So she doesn’t protest when she suddenly feels Shawn lifting their joined hands, bringing the back of her hand to his lips. He brushes a kiss against her hand gently, just once, just like he always used to, and she feels like she is going to cry again, for an entirely different reason than before. It’s gentle and sweet and exactly the comfort she needs and it _hurts_.

“We’re going to be okay, Jules,” he says softly, and then rests their hands on the bed between them again, saying nothing else, and even he isn’t quite sure what he means by that, he just knows that he feels hopeful for the first time since the breakup. 

When he wakes up again an hour later, in response to a flash of pain from his arm—he never _did_ get that aspirin--Juliet is curled against him, her head resting against his injured arm against his chest, which is how he knows her movements were unconscious. The pressure is almost certainly what’s causing his arm to throb, but he doesn’t mind. He’d rather have her here, next to him, at _last_ , than have his arm out of harm’s way. _Arm’s way_ , he thinks drowsily, smiling to himself at his joke. But the scratchy material of his sling can’t be comfortable against her cheek, so as delicately as he can, he removes the sling (he tells himself it’s because it’s uncomfortable to sleep in it, and it could irritate her skin, but if removing it causes her to move closer to him, well, that’s just a pleasant side effect).

He curls his good arm around her, pulling her closer to him, burying his face in her hair. She smells like she always does—peaches and vanilla—and it smells like home. Yes, someone is still trying to kill him—them—and yes, he knows Juliet hasn’t forgiven him, that this closeness will be gone by morning, probably, but damned if he isn’t happy beyond belief right now, pressed so tightly against her that he feels her heartbeat with his own, just like he’s dreamed about, hardly dared to actually hope for, for weeks. Smiling to himself, he goes back to sleep. 

Juliet is the first to wake up in the morning.

The first thing she feels is the weight of the arm around her waist. She knows before her eyes are even open that she must have curled up closer to Shawn over the course of the night, but it feels so _right_ that she can’t bring herself to worry about what this means, what will happen next, how they will possibly _address_ this. Instead, she lets herself keep her eyes closed for just a moment, relaxing into the embrace she knows so well, the arms she’s missed so much.

 _Arms!_ she thinks, suddenly, remembering Shawn’s injury. She opens her eyes, and sure enough, her head is resting against the bandaged arm pressed against Shawn’s chest.

He doesn’t seem to mind, though, and she takes a moment to let herself look at his face, peaceful in sleep. It’s been a long time since she’s gotten to be so close to him without having to feel his eager eyes on her, always hoping that she’ll let him back in.

Right now, she doesn’t have to worry about the pressure of that, and it’s all that she can do to keep herself from reaching up to his face, trace the features she knows so well, just to feel the stubble on his cheeks beneath her palm again, the way she used to, before everything. It’s becoming harder and harder to remember what’s keeping her away from him at this point. Instead, moments like this keep piling up, when she looks at his face, the face she memorized so long ago, the face she still _adores_ , and all that she can remember is the good, the tenderness, how well they fit together.

 _Used to fit together_ , she tells herself sternly, but it’s no use. She _had_ meant what she said last night—sleeping next to Shawn was a momentary comfort. The trust isn’t back. She loves him—she knows that--but she isn’t ready. And yet, it is getting harder and harder to tell herself that, harder to deny how right it feels to be this close to him, how much more right it would feel to just pull him closer now, let it all be in the past. The temptation is almost overwhelming. She’s _this_ close to waking him up by pulling his face down to hers when a loud noise from outside the house startles some sense into her.

It wakes Shawn up, too. “Jules?” he asks drowsily, anxiously, and she tries not to dwell on the fact that her name is, once again, his first thought. “Are you okay?”

She’s jumped away from him now, out of his grasp, and already she feels _cold_ , wrong, missing the stability of his arms around her.

But she can’t dwell on that now; now she’s across the room, fumbling in her bag for her service weapon. _I should’ve kept it next to me, how stupid could I be?_

“There was a noise outside, Shawn. It could have been another explosion. We’ve gotta check it out,” she says, trying to keep the fear and urgency that are rising within her out of her voice.

She watches his eyes widen, suddenly wide awake. “Oh, crap,” he says quietly. “Okay. How do you want to go about this?”

“I’m getting my gun,” she says, distractedly, “and then we’ll go check out the window at the front of the house. _Quietly_. I think the noise came from the front of the house, but we’ll have to proceed carefully. We don’t know what—or who—is out there, and we don’t want them to know that _we_ know anything is wrong.”

Shawn pulls himself up until he’s almost kneeling on the bed, sitting back on his heels, watching her rifle through her bag.

“Jules,” he says softly.

She looks over at him, surprised by the tone of his voice, and further surprised by the look in his eyes. There’s fear there, but also an earnestness, a softness, that makes him look like a little boy. “Yeah, Shawn?”

“Just—if there’s something out there, and this is it--,” he begins.

She shakes her head, holding up her hand, cutting him off. “No, Shawn, we’re going to be fine.”

“Just let me say this, please,” he pleads, and he looks so desperately at her that she nods and quits digging through her purse, looking up at him.

“Okay.”

“I know that last night—you were just scared, you don’t want to get back together, and I get that, I _deserve_ that, I know, but…if this is it, right now, Jules, I need you to know that I love you. I know I hurt you, and that kills me, but I never stopped loving you. I _could_ never stop. And I’m just so sorry, for everything, for hurting you. I just…,” he sighs, then continues, “God, Jules, you’re my world. You have to know that.”

She can’t help herself anymore; not even pausing to think, she starts towards him, hardly even conscious of her arms reaching out—

And then the door behind her bangs open, something heavy hitting her in the back of the head.

And everything goes black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And on that note…
> 
> Thanks so much for reading! Can’t believe we’re already five chapters/weeks in. As always, I would really love to know your thoughts on this chapter, especially since this one is a personal favorite! Thanks so much to those who have left comments so far—they are so fun to read and they absolutely make my day!
> 
> More action coming next week!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 6: In which Buzz was right, Juliet is…silent, and Shawn knows some trivia about Joseph Stalin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry to leave y’all on such a cliffhanger last week! I’m excited about this chapter, though, some of my favorite Shawn lines are in it! Hope you enjoy!

**_1988_ **

_“Okay. Think, Shawn. What do you do?” Henry Spencer is standing in the backyard, feet away from his son, holding Shawn’s brand-new Power Drencher water gun so it points directly at Shawn’s chest._

_“Gee, I don’t know, Dad. Put on my swim trunks?” Shawn doesn’t even try to mask the frustration in his voice._

_“Shawn, think. Someone is pointing a gun at you. What do you do?”_

_“Dad, it’s my birthday, and that’s mine. Do we have to do this right now? It’s not even a real gun.”_

_“Obviously it’s not a real gun, Shawn. Do you think I would be stupid enough to point a real gun at my son in our backyard in broad daylight? Not that you haven’t asked for it a number of times, mind you.”_

_Shawn sighs. “Please, can we just do this tomorrow?”_

_“Shawn, do you really think that’s going to work? Some crazy psychopath is pointing a gun at you, and you’re unarmed, and you’re just going to ask him if he can try again tomorrow?”_

_Shawn frowns at him, shrugging. “I might. And you do realize, in this scenario, you just called yourself a crazy psychopath?”_

_“_ Shawn. _”_

_Shawn yells suddenly, loud enough that his voice carries through the open kitchen window. He can see his mom inside, standing at the kitchen island. “Mom! I need you out here!”_

_“Henry, what on earth?” Shawn’s mom asks, running into the backyard. “Isn’t that Shawn’s new toy?”_

_“Mom, I’m being held hostage!” Shawn whines, knowing full well that his mother will take his side._

_“Henry, it’s his birthday. You’re being ridiculous,” she says, giving Shawn’s dad a warning look. “Now put the gun down and come in and help with Shawn’s cake. Your brother Jack will be here soon, and I don’t want him running off with it.”_

_“Uncle Jack is coming?” Shawn asks, brightening up._

_“Jack is coming?” Henry doesn’t sound nearly as happy as Shawn._

_“He’s on his way. Now come on, Henry, come help me in the kitchen,” she replies._

_Henry puts the water gun down on the picnic bench in the yard. “For the record, Shawn, if a criminal_ is _pointing a gun at you, you’re not going to have time to call your mom.”_

 _“Maybe not,” says Shawn. “But clearly I_ can _distract him—or at least create a diversion.”_

_Henry shakes his head. “We’ll pick this up tomorrow.”_

_As Henry walks back towards the house, Shawn calls after him. “Hey Dad?”_

_Henry turns, right as Shawn hits him directly in the chest with a blast of water. “I can stall him, too,” he says. With that, he runs off around the side of the house, water gun in hand._

_Henry shakes his head. “Happy birthday, kid,” he mutters, wringing out his shirt._

**Present Day**

Shawn doesn’t think, he just runs across the room to where Juliet is crumpled on the floor, his heart in his stomach. She isn’t getting up. _Why isn’t she getting up?_

“Blondie had it coming,” a voice sneers from the doorway. 

Shawn’s heard that voice before. Not enough to say it’s quite _familiar_ , exactly, but he’s definitely heard it before. But he can’t place it, not right now, not when Juliet—beautiful, wonderful Juliet, the love of his life—is knocked out cold, right there on the floor in front of him. He doesn’t care what happens to him, but if Juliet dies, he will never forgive himself.

Quickly, he checks Juliet’s pulse. It’s there. Faint, but it’s there. “Oh, thank God,” he breathes, forgetting for just a moment that there’s someone else in the room now, someone who very much wants him dead.

He doesn’t turn around right away, although he’s dying to get a glimpse of the guy, wondering if he’ll be able to place him immediately, or if he’ll have to work a little harder, as he had the day before. Clearly, this guy isn’t ready to shoot Shawn yet—if he was, Shawn would already be dead—and that means that there is a chance to stall, a chance to _maybe_ get out of here in time to get Juliet some help.

He waits until the perp gets flustered. Flustered—but not agitated, not yet entirely angry—that’s the key. That’s the sweet spot when it comes to someone like this, someone who is clearly hesitant to shoot. “Uh, hello?” the guy says suddenly, finally, “I’m kind of pointing a gun at you here.”

That’s Shawn’s cue. He turns away from Juliet, but stays kneeling on the floor next to her. “Are you? I hadn’t noticed.” Shawn isn’t sure sarcasm is the best avenue, but it _is_ what he’s best at, and he always figured that when someone is holding a gun at you, it’s best to play to your strengths. He notes that the guy is just like Buzz had described him from his half-second look—shaved head, with what looks like a snake tattoo going round the back of it. _Good work, Buzz._ His facial features are familiar to Shawn, but his mind is still racing too fast to quite place them.

“Are you stupid? I could kill you right now, you know,” he says, holding the gun steadily, aiming directly at Shawn’s head.

“Well, obviously,” Shawn responds, too frantic to even really consider the gun. “But in case you haven’t noticed, I’m a little busy at the moment, since this is my…Jules, on the floor here, so if you wanna wait on the shooting thing until I’m a little less distracted, that would be great.”

“Yeah, I’m not terribly worried about what’s convenient for you,” the man responds.

“Well, clearly,” Shawn answers. “Because let me tell you, you busting down the door right then? Not convenient for me _at all_.” He takes a risk, turning back to Juliet, and presses his fingers to her neck, hoping her pulse has gotten stronger, but it’s still so very faint that he wants to cry.

 _She’s alive, she’s still alive_ , he tells himself. Maybe backup is on the way—they were supposed to have officers watching the house this whole time—and if so, maybe he can stall just enough that backup can get here in time.

“You know, it’s not going to be a whole lot of fun to kill me if I’m not fully engaged with it,” he says to the killer, who is still pointing the gun at him. (Well, Shawn assumes he’s still pointing the gun at him, but he’s turned his back now, because Juliet is injured, so who cares about the gun anyway?)

The killer sounds confused, but he doesn’t shoot, which seems to be a good sign. “You want to make this more fun for me?”

“Well, _one_ of us may as well have the other’s best interest in mind,” Shawn says, stalling, as he tries to come up with any possible way this could end well for him and Jules. Obviously, this guy isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, so that’s a plus, but stupid criminals tend to be more volatile, so it may or may not be of much help. “Clearly, it’s not looking like it’s going to be you, so I’ll take the high road. Be the bigger man, all of that. My dad would be proud of me…,” he pauses. “ _That_ would be a first.”

“I’m not here to talk about your dad!” the man cries, holding his gun alarmingly steady.

“That’s fair,” Shawn said, nodding. “I’m not the biggest fan of talking about him either, you can ask my mom. She’s _always_ trying to get me to talk about him. Psychologists, you know?” He shrugs in a what-are-you-gonna-do kind of manner.

“Would you shut up, man?” the man asks, irritated, and Shawn takes a mental step back. He _has_ to keep him from getting annoyed, or else he loses his chance.

“Sorry,” Shawn says. “I always talk a lot when I get nervous. Well, always, really. Gus says it’s my way of keeping people from _really_ looking at me, which doesn’t actually make sense because a) he’s not the psychologist, and 2) I’ve never had a problem with people looking at me. I mean, look at my hair. You’d show this off if you--,” he paused. “Sorry, man, that was pretty insensitive. Like I said, I just tend to jabber on and on when there’s a lot going on--.”

“I said _shut up_ ,” the man roars, and Shawn winces a little. “I’m going to kill you, in case you didn’t _know_ , so now would be a good time to do exactly as I say.”

Shawn shrugs, taking a chance. “I mean, if you’re going to kill me either way, I don’t see a _ton_ of incentive to be your personal genie, I gotta be honest. But I’ll hear you out. What are you here for?”

“You know _exactly_ why I’m here,” the man responds, his face twisting into a picture of rage.

“Look, no offense, man, but I don’t even know who you are,” Shawn says. He’s lying, of course; he had recognized the man’s features as soon as he turned around. His voice had been familiar, and yet the face that Shawn had seen had been entirely a surprise, once he’d been together enough to fill in the gaps. He’d been right to tell Juliet to check their recent files at the station, but this guy had never been a suspect. He’d been a witness.

It made sense, though, that Juliet wouldn’t have been able to find him, even if she’d looked at the right file. Shawn can’t come up with a name—he wasn’t there for this guy’s statement, he’d just seen (and overheard) when he was brought into the station--but he remembers the case. This guy hadn’t had a shaved head before, and Shawn could see that the tattoo Buzz had spotted—a snake, like he’d thought before—on the back of his head hadn’t healed completely yet.

“Nice tattoo,” Shawn blurts. “Personally, I’ve never been bothered by my face not being reflected when I turn my back to the mirror, but good for you.”

The man narrows his eyes, clearly trying to work out what Shawn had said, and then resorts to aiming his gun a little higher. In the meantime, Shawn decided to try his luck at distracting him again.

“Can I get a name or something to work with?” Shawn asks. “An alias is fine, if you’ve got a preference. Or I could just call you Todd, you look like a Todd.”

“Todd?” the guy asks. “Really?”

Shawn bites back his smile. The distraction is working; it’s possible he’ll be able to stall long enough.

“Not a fan of Todd?” Shawn asks. “That’s…fair. I mean, it’s not a _great_ name, but I’ve never met a Todd I didn’t like--.”

Todd (Shawn decides to call him Todd in his head anyway, just to spite him, because what the hell, he’s about to die anyway) cocks his gun, his aim never wavering from Shawn’s chest. “Stop stalling.”

“I’m all for that,” Shawn says, raising his hands. “But we’re a little late. I think he died in Moscow in, like, the fifties.”

Todd furrows his eyebrows for a minute before he seems to understand the joke. “You’re an idiot. It’s almost a waste of my time to kill you.”

“Well, I’ll remind you, you really don’t _have_ to,” Shawn says. “In fact, many would agree it’s better if you don’t. Four out of five dentists say--.”

“I said _stop stalling,_ ” Todd roars, and Shawn almost flinches.

“Look, man,” he says quietly. “I get that this doesn’t end well for me, I do,” he flashes back to a moment, years ago, when he’d uttered those same words, hoping for a chance to call Juliet. She’d saved his life, then. She always did. He shakes his head to clear it, hoping the head shake might garner a little sympathy. “But you haven’t actually told me what you want from me yet, and I still have no idea who you are or why you’re doing this. Isn’t it only fair you clue me in a little bit?”

“I don’t have to be fair,” Todd snarls. “I have the gun.”

“That’s a good point,” Shawn says, nodding. “But I feel like, if _I_ were about to kill someone, I’d want him to know why. After all, you’ve already put so much _energy_ into this, with the explosions and everything? And good work on those, by the way, very scary. But if I were you, I just wouldn’t feel _complete_ if I just fizzled out at the finish.”

Shawn tries not to scan the room while he’s talking. He knows Juliet’s gun is in her purse; she’d been about to grab it when he’d started making his speech. Maybe if he hadn’t done that, she wouldn’t be lying on the floor now. They could have stopped him in time. Clearly, Todd’s working on his own, for now. If he had an accomplice, they would be here by now.

And yet, he doesn’t regret saying what he said, because if this was— _no, don’t even think it, Shawn_ —Juliet’s last moment, at least she knew how he really felt. At least she knew that he’d never stopped loving her, that he’d spend the rest of his life regretting how deeply he had hurt her.

He feels himself getting distracted. Now is not the time to think about him and Jules. She’s going to be okay. They’re going to get out of here, and everything will be fine. Now, if he can just _focus_ , come up with _something_ , he can get them both out of here without anything else going wrong.

At last, it comes to him: if he can get Todd to stand down for just a moment, or better yet, if he can distract him enough to turn his back, he might be able to reach for the gun. It’s a risk, certainly—a huge risk—but the fact that no backup has turned up yet is starting to panic him a little. Maybe backup isn’t coming, and if that’s the case, stalling will only work for so long.

And Todd clearly isn’t the most intelligent guy in the world, although that does beg the question of how someone like him was able to make the explosive devices that he _had_ made. Although, the explosives hadn’t really done terrible damage, either of them. Their throw wasn’t large enough to have killed Shawn, the first time, and the second time, he’d tried to install it in broad daylight in front of a police station.

Granted, Buzz had been the only one who had noticed, but still, even when that device had partially detonated, it hadn’t caused much damage. And now, Todd was here, clearly with the advantage, since his gun is still pointed at Shawn, but he hasn’t fired it, and he’s had every opportunity to do so.

Clearly, Todd is in fact not a killer, or at least, he doesn’t want to be. If he did, he would have taken his shot the second he came in, and Shawn would have joined Juliet on the floor a long time ago.

Shawn tries not to smile, realizing all at once that if Todd doesn’t want to be a killer, he may really have a chance. But that also means that grabbing the gun could be risky; if Todd sees Shawn with the gun, he may do something erratic. He may finally take his shot.

And yet, what other choice does he have?

The only thing that’s left is to try and put the pieces together. But what if he doesn’t have time? Juliet has been out on the ground for at least a full five minutes. If she doesn’t come to soon, something is seriously wrong. She could _die_. He has to get her out of here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At least we got a little worried Shawn this chapter! Thanks so very much for reading! As always, I would love to know what you think! I’m having a lot of fun with this story, and it is SO fun to read your feedback!


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 7: “Todd” hasn’t backed down. Juliet hasn’t gotten up. Diamonds are Shawn’s best friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, all! Can’t believe we’re seven chapters in already! I’d planned for a longer chapter than this this week, but I ended up splitting what I had into two chapters instead, which I think made more sense overall. Still, we’re finally getting some clues about the case now, so I hope you enjoy this!

“Hey, before you kill me, would you answer one question for me?” Shawn asks. “And then you can shoot me if you want, that’s fine, but I just…I need to know _why_. Why are you trying to kill _me_ , and why are you trying to kill Jules? What is this about for you, man?”

Shawn is still trying to stall, but he’s starting to wonder if maybe that isn’t as necessary anymore. The longer he stands here talking to Todd, the more certain he becomes that Todd is not going to kill them. He would have done it already. But that doesn’t mean they’re out of the woods. Of course, he still needs to keep Todd distracted, but something about him is off—maybe it’s that the tattoo looks fresh, maybe it’s that he even _allowed_ Shawn to start talking in the first place and didn’t kill him straight away—but _something_ is telling Shawn to just keep talking, and maybe, _maybe_ they’ll make it out of here.

Of course, all of that is a moot point, he knows, if Juliet succumbs to her injuries. Shawn’s no longer terribly worried about his own safety, but he does _have_ to find a way to get her out of here. There’s got to be a way to get Todd distracted enough that he can get Juliet to safety. There just has to be. After all they’ve been through, and then last night, and the moment they’d shared just before Todd had burst in and ruined everything, he’s not going to lose the woman he loves. He’s not. He has to put something together quickly enough that his mind can start working on another plan.

“You want to know why I’m going to kill you?” Todd asks. “I think you already know why, _psychic_.”

Shawn shakes his head. “See, that’s the thing. The spirits are certainly talkative today—they won’t shut up, actually, but they’re sending a lot of mixed signals, like when Bobby and Shelly had that weird fight on _Twin Peaks_ , you know, when they weren’t sure if Leo was actually brain dead and they were having all those money problems…”

“What are you _talking_ about?” Todd is bordering on angry now, and Shawn knows he’s treading on thin ice.

“Right, sorry. I got distracted for a second, you know,” he motions to where Juliet is lying on the floor, and the sight of her sobers him, forcing him to concentrate. “A lot going on and all that. _Anyway_ , the spirits only seem clear on one thing, but the problem is, it doesn’t seem to make any sense.” Should he use the angle he’s just come up with? Todd isn’t a killer—at least not by nature—but will it help him or hurt him to point that out?

“Well, are you going to tell me what it is, or what? I’m getting bored of your games, psychic.”

Shawn shakes his head, making a decision at last. “I just don’t understand. The spirits are clear on this, but it just doesn’t add up—they’re saying you’re not behind this. You were paid to do this. You’re not the criminal, you’re the cover-up.” He says each word slowly, trying to drag it out, trying to make it look like he really is receiving the message from beyond. He doesn’t usually have to try so hard to have one of his “visions”, but he really _is_ having trouble focusing, not to mention the fact that having a “vision” with Juliet in the room, even unconscious, still stings. He wonders if he’ll ever be able to do it again without freezing at the memory of how much he hurt her.

“What else are they saying?” Todd asks, lowering the gun a little, confirming what Shawn had only just begun to suspect. He seems to catch himself as he does, quickly picking it back up so it points at Shawn’s chest again.

“Well,” says Shawn, risking turning his back again to check on Juliet. It doesn’t seem to bother Todd, which seems to prove his theory even more. Her pulse seems to be stronger, which he takes as a good sign, although he knows they still have precious few minutes if they’re going to stop her condition from getting worse. He smooths a lock of hair that’s fallen in her eyes away from her face, tucking it behind her ear. The softness of her hair and the solemnity of looking at her face almost breaks him. _Please, please wake up, Jules_. _I love you._

Shawn hears her voice in his head, the way she always used to calm him down when things got overwhelming. “ _Take a breath.”_ He does. Gaining a little courage from the thought of her, he continues. “The spirits seem to be saying that you got roped into all of this, like none of this had anything to do with you, but you needed the money. You needed to help whoever is _really_ involved in this make something disappear.”

Todd doesn’t lower the gun this time, when Shawn turns to look back at him. “What else?” he demands.

It’s coming to Shawn in spades now; he can see the case file in his mind, recalling Todd’s witness testimony—he hadn’t been there for the interview, but he remembers what was gleaned from it--which had allowed them to arrest one man, who they suspected was the ringleader of the warehouse trafficking operation. But that perp had accepted a plea deal, and he was currently serving a reasonably short sentence, which had infuriated Lassiter. Shawn remembers now, it’s all coming together; that case had never sat well with him before. He’d always felt like there was something they were missing, and suddenly, he knows, he was right.

And that had been Juliet’s case, not Lassiter’s. Yes, Lassiter had been upset when he’d heard about the plea deal, but then, he was always upset when he heard about a criminal getting a lower sentence than he felt the perp deserved. But Juliet had been lead on that case, and it had been her—not Lassie—that headed the investigation.

And Shawn had helped. He knew now what that flashback to a warehouse had been from; he’d been there, with Jules, as they’d investigated. They’d taken the suspect down in that warehouse, and the suspect had been the only one there at the time. That had always seemed weird, but he’d never stopped to dwell on it before. And it had been _Todd’s_ testimony that had put them there, in that exact warehouse, at that time. At the time, they’d thought Todd was genuinely helping them, giving them the lead they needed.

But it had been a cover up for _something_ , it must have been. It had been strategic, that the suspect they caught had been the only one there at the time. He hadn’t implicated anyone else in the dealings, claiming that he was using the warehouse for his own nefarious purposes on his own accord; he had claimed that he had no partners, no one working for him. The only people he’d sold out had been a few of his buyers—mostly people that the SBPD had marked as suspicious ages ago.

But then, why Todd? Why now? Shawn tried to think. He kept telling himself to focus—Jules’ life still hung in the balance. He _had_ to figure this out, he wouldn’t even let himself think of the alternative.

He’d been quiet too long, he needed to say _something._ There must have been something in that case, something he and Juliet would have seen (or that Todd or whoever he was working for would have suspected they would have inadvertently seen) that had to be kept quiet. There was something there that would have cracked the case wide open, but if only he could see it!

He thinks back, scanning through his mind—what _was_ it about that case? He has to work with what he’s got. If he can’t pin down how Todd is involved, at least he can feed him some details, try to get Todd to reveal a little more information.

The case was about _diamonds_. There has to be something he can do with that. But he still can’t concentrate; the thought of diamonds just makes him think sadly of Juliet. He wants to turn back to her again, hold her until she wakes up. She _has_ to wake up. _Focus, Spencer, dammit_. Ooh, now he’s getting Lassie’s voice in his head, that’s new. It helps, though. The only way to get the chance to hold Jules in his arms again is to keep going now.

Quickly, he returns to Todd. “Sorry,” he says, raising his fingers to his head. “A lot of messages coming through—but, aha! There was a case! I’m getting donuts…demons? No, those don’t seem right. Although I wouldn’t say no to a donut, if you’re offering…,” he risks a glance at Todd, who is glaring. “Not a donut guy? Okay then…ah, diamonds! Diamonds! And they’re…filthy. Wow, really gross, actually, Todd.”

“My name,” Todd growled, “is _not Todd_.”

“Right, sorry,” Shawn said, shaking his head. “I have a lot going on here, man. Sorry. Anyway, the diamonds. They’re dirty, dripping…dripping? Dripping…something? Something red? Ketchup? No, that doesn’t seem to make sense…Blood? They’re dripping blood? But how does _that_ make sense? Ugh, you’re gonna need a lot more than Windex for those diamonds. Ah--,” he says, gripping his forehead as if in pain. “ _Blood_ diamonds! That’s it! That makes sense. But there’s something else, what is it?”

“Are you stalling again?” Todd asks, his suspicion bordering on annoyance again.

“Wait, there’s more!” Shawn cried. “And I don’t mean OxiClean, although Billy Mays might have done an infomercial where he dipped bloody diamonds in it, I’m not totally sure…,” he’s not sure the Billy Mays joke will land, but it’s the first thing that came to him, so he ran with it.

Todd ignores the joke, which Shawn feels is fair. It wasn’t his best work. “Well, what _are_ you getting?” he asks impatiently.

Shawn shakes his head. “I’m not sure. I’m getting stoplights. Green lights? Crosswalks? None of that seems right. Ah, traffic. Trafficking! The diamonds were being _trafficked._ This was the case about the trafficking of blood diamonds.”

“I knew you know who I am,” Todd growled. “You thought you could lie your way out of this, didn’t you?” His eyes narrowed, and for a moment, Shawn was afraid.

Shawn put his hands up. “Dude, I’m sorry. I still have no idea who you are, or what this about. I’m seeing details about _why_ you’re here—I mean, what case you were involved in, but I really don’t see how you factor into this at all.”

Shawn tries to think harder. It’s not making sense. Todd had been the _good_ guy, hadn’t he? He wasn’t the foreman of the warehouse where the arrest had taken place; the warehouse he worked in shared an alley with them. He’d been a simple witness, nothing more, and the case had gone off seamlessly after that. _Too_ seamlessly, he realizes now. There has to be something more that he’s missing. He’s begun to place the warehouse vision from this morning, but he still can’t remember what triggered it. Whatever that trigger was must hold the key, some kind of clue, that could point out why Todd, who’d never even really been suspected, was here now—clearly involved in something else, something much deeper.

The sincerity seemed to calm Todd, his face relaxing slightly. “What else do you see, then?”

Shawn screwed up his face, trying to make it look like he was envisioning something. He hadn’t entirely lied to Todd—after all, he still had no real idea what had been missing on the case. Todd had to have factored in, but _how_? What had Shawn and Juliet stumbled into that they’d missed the first time? And how could they have missed it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading! I hope you liked this chapter—there’s more coming soon! As always, I would absolutely love to hear your thoughts on this chapter! Huge thank you to everyone who has left kudos and comments so far, it makes my day to read them!


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Eight: Todd’s getting antsy, which worries Shawn. Juliet is still out cold, which, again, worries Shawn. Shawn still can’t figure out what clues he’s missing, which…does it even need to be said?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is another chapter that got split in editing, which I’m sorry about! It was just WAY too long otherwise. On the plus side, loooooooong chapter (and more Shules) coming next week!

Shawn has been quiet for a bit too long, and he can tell that Todd is getting annoyed. He doesn’t have much longer to stall, but he doesn’t know what to say. And plus, he has to speed this up, if he’s going to find a way to get Juliet safely out of here in time.

“I gotta be honest, man, I’m not getting much on this, at least as far as you’re concerned,” Shawn says, hoping to buy himself a couple extra minutes to keep thinking. “Which is weird, considering the whole shaved-head-tattoo thing you’ve got going on and all—seems like the spirits would _want_ to chat about that, they can be a little…catty.”

Todd ignores Shawn’s latter comment, though he looks at Shawn with such disgust that Shawn isn’t really sure which part of his statement pissed him off. “Figures,” he scoffs. “I never bought the whole psychic thing.”

“The thing is,” Shawn responds, “people always assume that the psychic thing means I have access to any information, at any time. But that’s not really how it works. I only hear,” he pauses for dramatic effect, “what the spirits _want me_ to hear. And the thing is, they’re not giving me a whole lot to work with when it comes to _why_ there is a gun pointed at my chest right now.”

“Very convenient, that you suddenly don’t know anything,” Todd responds. “I’ve seen the news articles. I’ve heard about how quickly you put things together. This is all an act, isn’t it?”

“Not an act,” Shawn says, and then—because he can’t help himself, even as saying it stings—“although that _would_ be a hell of an act, wouldn’t it? But I’m just at the mercy of the spirits, which, believe me, is absolutely _not_ feeling very convenient right now. So just level with me, man, tell me what I’m missing.”

“I don’t have to tell you anything,” Todd says, “but you see, Shawn, I _know_ you’re not really psychic. Because if you were, you’d have already seen what I’m about to tell you.”

“Oh yeah? What’s that?”

“ _I’m_ not the one you need to worry about,” Todd answers, smirking.

Before Shawn can even think to ask another question (not that he expected it to be answered anyway with the way things have been going with Todd), there’s a giant crash from the living room.

Todd narrows his eyes, suddenly appearing very much like the snake on the back of his head, keeping the gun pointed at Shawn’s chest. “What was that?”

“How should I know?” Shawn blurts. “I’ve been with you this whole time.”

“What, no “spirits” warning you this time?” Todd mocks.

“Dude, I just explained that that’s not really how it works,” Shawn replies. “If it was, don’t you think I would’ve gotten out of here before you showed up this morning? Don’t you think I would’ve gotten my…Jules…out of here, at least?” He doesn’t risk a glance back at her, not this time, his heart pounding in his ears.

Todd is quiet for a long moment, considering. Then, keeping the gun pointed towards Shawn, he begins to creep backwards, past Juliet on the floor, towards the door. “I’m going to see who’s out there,” he says. “Don’t even _think_ about trying to escape.”

“What is this, the Pit of Despair?” Shawn asks. The second the words are out of his mouth, he regrets it, but really, Todd walked right into that one, so to speak. It _was_ the perfect reference.

Todd ignores him, which is a little disappointing, although probably for the best, and keeps inching backwards, distracted by his task and his destination. He keeps the gun steadily pointed at Shawn, though, and it’s not until he’s passing through the door frame that Shawn begins to feel like he can actually breathe again.

The second he’s gone, Shawn sighs, relieved. “Right,” he mutters. “ _Definitely_ gonna follow _that_ order, Todd.”

He looks around the room for a second, then pauses, as several more loud bangs come from the living room. _Come on, Shawn, focus._ Whatever’s going on out there, he has to make this quick. Unless…what if backup has finally arrived? What if they need help?

Shawn is torn. He has to help Jules to safety, because even though he’s seen her stirring a few times, she’s never _totally_ regained consciousness. And as much as he wants to figure out what’s going on, to get out there and make sure they take these guys down, he has to look out for her first. After all, what if he goes out there, and while he gets distracted, something even worse happens to Jules? He would never forgive himself if that happened while she was on his watch.

It has to be Jules. She is his first priority. His eyes sweep the room, trying to formulate a plan. They have no chance of getting out of the room, not with Todd and whatever else is out there still who-knows-where. Their only chance is to hide. Clearly the door to the bedroom has already been busted open, and the bathroom is out in the hall, but maybe—ah, he spots the closet. Okay. Get Jules, and his cell phone, and her gun into the closet, and maybe they’ll make it out of here.

Wait, can he move a person with a head injury? Is that allowed? He doesn’t have time to think about it. Gus would know. But Gus isn’t here, and there’s no _time_. He has no choice. He opens the closet door. Luckily, it’s only a few feet away from where Juliet is lying.

He sighs, realizing that in all the panic and fear of the morning, he’s forgotten all about his injured arm. Well, at least that reinforces that it’s a much better idea to hide with Jules than it is to try and help in a fight. He doesn’t have time to look for the aspirin, so hopefully Jules has some in her purse. He crouches down beside her, bracing himself for the pain that he knows is about to shoot through him.

As gently and gingerly as he can, he slips his arms under her, lifting her up. He staggers for a second, the pain from the weight on his injured arm making him suddenly feel dizzy, but he presses through it, holding Juliet close to his chest. This—she--is too important to stop now. Juliet stirs a little bit in his arms, her eyelids fluttering, but she doesn’t seem to have the strength to open her eyes fully or speak yet.

“Shh, Jules, it’s okay,” he whispers. “It’s just me.”

Juliet makes no response, which makes him nervous. He lays her gently on the floor of the closet, sighing in relief at the release from some of the pain in his arm, though it still throbs menacingly, then runs back out, grabbing her purse, and his phone. He looks around for something—anything, to barricade the door, and finally grabs a chair from the desk in the corner, dragging it to the closet as well with his good arm.

There’s no room to move around in the closet once he, Juliet, and the chair are all inside, so once Shawn locks the closet door and wedges the chair under the door handle, he sits beside Jules, lifting her head so it rests in his lap.

He rummages through her bag, grabbing the gun, so it’s not as out of reach, just in case help doesn’t get to them in time, and then searches for aspirin. He finds some Advil, which will have to do for now, and swallows it, wishing he’d thought to grab some water while he was still in the bedroom.

Then, he grabs his phone. He hasn’t had the chance to use it the whole time they’d been in the safehouse, after the Chief had warned him not to, and it shows. From a quick glance, he has dozens of text messages from Gus alone. He sighs, reminding himself to focus again. Then, ignoring the myriad of texts from Gus for the moment (though he wants nothing more than the reassurance of his best friend right now), he calls Lassie.

“Spencer, it’s about damn time, what the hell is going on?” Lassie demands, upon picking up on the first ring.

“Well, hello to you too, Lassie.”

“Spencer, we don’t have time for pleasantries. I’m on my way to you—I got a call fifteen minutes ago that there had been some kind of explosion by the safe house, and then nothing from you or O’Hara? Where the hell is O’Hara? What’s going on over there?”

“Jules is knocked out--.”

Shawn is cut off by a sharp intake of breath from Lassiter. “Knocked out? For how long?”

“I don’t know, ten minutes? I was focusing on talking the psycho that did it out of killing both of us. It seemed like she woke up a little a minute ago, when I was carrying her--.”

“You _carried_ her? When she’s injured?”

“I didn’t have a choice, Lassie, we are _literally_ hiding in a closet right now, while whoever the dude is that’s trying to kill us is doing _something_ loud in the living room.”

“What?”

“Look, I can’t explain right now, there’s not enough time. But I need you to get down here, and bring an ambulance. I’m really worried about Jules, Lassie, she could _die_ \--.” Shawn’s voice breaks on the word, and for a second all of the fear that he’s been pushing aside since they woke up this morning crashes over him in waves, almost causing him to break down.

He strokes Juliet’s hair in his lap, the feel of it between his fingers bringing him comfort like she always does, a comfort he’s missed so _much_ in the last few weeks while they’ve been apart. Jules can’t die, she just can’t. She is everything.

“Spencer? Spencer!” Shawn doesn’t know how long Lassie’s been trying to get his attention, but his tone is surprising—gentler than he usually sounds. Maybe it’s the change in him since he married Marlowe—he’s gotten softer, somehow, even to Shawn (which was unexpected after the breakup), although he’d never admit to that. But most likely it’s the fact that Jules is injured, and the only other person that loves Juliet quite as much as Shawn does (even though it’s not the same) is Lassiter. Shawn will always have a particular fondness for him for that, for the way that Lassie loves her (though _he’d_ never admit to _that_ , either).

“Sorry,” Shawn says. “Spaced out for a second.”

“Look, we’ll be right there,” Lassiter says. “And backup _should_ already be there, since they were supposed to be watching the house. Stay where you are.”

Shawn nods, forgetting for the moment that Lassiter can’t see him.

“Oh, and Shawn?” Lassiter’s voice is even gentler now, which, combined with the fact that he’s using Shawn’s first name, catches Shawn off guard. They both pause for a moment, and Shawn wonders if Lassiter is just as surprised as he is by his use of Shawn’s first name. Neither of them choose to acknowledge it.

“Yeah?”

“O’Hara’s going to be fine,” he says confidently. “There’s no one tougher than her.”

Shawn nods again, smiling weakly, looking down at Juliet’s pale face. “You know that’s right.”

“Sit tight.” Lassiter says, and he hangs up.

Shawn sits quietly for a moment, playing with Juliet’s hair, trying to go over everything again in his head. Todd was wrong about one thing—Shawn had already realized that Todd wasn’t their main concern. He was clearly wrapped up in something much bigger than himself, something he clearly wasn’t entirely convinced he should be going along with, if the fact that he hadn’t shot them was any indication. Still, the problem remained: who was Todd working for? How had he gotten caught up in all of this? And _what_ were the clues that still evaded him—the trigger from the explosion by his dad’s, the memory from earlier, Todd’s testimony and connection to the diamonds case? Somewhere in there was a thread that would pull it all together, but in this moment, he was no closer to finding it than he had been the very first time he laid eyes on Todd.

Moreover, he’s got other things on his mind, much as he wants to focus only on the case. The woman next to him is a much more pressing matter at the moment. He’s glad Lassie is on the way, but he’s still worried about Juliet. Realistically, he knows that he hadn’t been speaking to Todd for as long as he _felt_ like he’d been speaking to Todd, but it still seemed like Juliet had been out for way too long, even though she had stirred a couple times, and her pulse seems to be improving.

As if an answer to a prayer, Juliet stirs again, her head moving in his lap. “Jules?” he asks.

She doesn’t open her eyes, and she doesn’t move again, which terrifies Shawn. If she doesn’t come to soon, he’s going to lose her, and that _can’t_ happen. Not Juliet. Not before they’ve completely made things right.

He looks down at her face, the face he knows so well and loves so much. He has missed her so much, these last few weeks, missed the encouragement that’s always in her eyes, her laugh, the way she hid her smiles when she didn’t want to egg him on as he teased Lassie. He misses the way her nose scrunches up sometimes when she’s happy, the cutest thing he’s ever seen in his life. That’s what he misses most of all—the way that they were happy. He’s no longer so naïve to think that they would have just gone on being happy if he’d never given her his jacket—Juliet _had_ to find out, and he should have been the one to tell her—but he misses how happy they used to be together, how in love they were, the way that it felt to be able to hold each other and love each other, and just _be together_ after so many years of thinking it might never happen. Thinking about it makes him miss her so much that he feels like he can’t breathe.

Shawn bends down, resting his forehead against Juliet’s in his lap. “Jules,” he says to her softly, “you have to be okay. I’m not going to let you not be okay. I love you, and we’re going to work past all this stuff we’ve been going through because I just--,” he pauses, finally hit by the fear that’s been threatening to break through all morning, “I just need you. I need you to be okay.”

He sits up again, closing his eyes, his hand still in her hair, trying to choke back the fear. Fear won’t do him any good now, but it’s impossible not to feel it when Juliet is here and she’s been so quiet for so long. He sits quietly for a moment, trying not to panic. Suddenly, he feels her head move again in his lap.

Not daring to believe it, he opens his eyes, and finds hers, foggy, but still the most beautiful blue he’s ever seen, looking back at him, finally open again at last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, I am SO glad to have Juliet awake again, you have no idea. We’re gonna start getting into really fun territory now (and getting into this case in earnest) and I really hope y’all will like where it goes! I'm thinking at this point, we're going to end up a bit longer than 15 chapters, but we'll see...
> 
> As always, I would LOVE any feedback on this chapter. So sorry to leave you hanging on Jules’ condition just a bit longer, but we’ll catch up with her (and get back to telling a bit of this from her perspective again) soon! Thanks so much for reading and for all the positive feedback so far! It means so much to me!


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Nine: Juliet considers old wounds. Todd gets a shiny new name. Foggy details emerge about a borrowed tattoo. Shawn gets distracted by something blue. All the while, they hide…in more ways than one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a monster chapter, you guys, and I didn’t actually intend for it to be. It was decently long to begin with, but then I realized that there were like five other things that had to go in here to lay the groundwork for the future and thus…we ended up with this ridiculous monstrosity. I do apologize. Next week, we’ll be back to something a bit more reasonable, I promise! (Also HOW are we on the ninth chapter already?!)
> 
> Oh, and there's a bit of a suspend-your-disbelief element to this chapter. Bear with me!

Juliet doesn’t say anything for a moment, her eyes darting back and forth. Which, Shawn realizes, probably only makes things more confusing, since they’re in the darkness of the closet.

“Shawn? Where are we? What happened?” Juliet looks up at him from where her head is resting in his lap. Her eyes still look foggy, and her face is fearful.

“Hey, hey, shhh, it’s okay. I’m here. We’re okay,” he says, stroking her hair. She relaxes into his touch, and it sends a wave of relief through Shawn, the fact that it’s okay for him to be this close to her right now. “It’s a long story—too long for right now, but I had to move us in here. We—well, it turns out we were not safe in the safe house, and we’re not _totally_ safe right now, but we will be. Lassie and the Chief are on their way.”

Juliet frowns. “How long was I out?”

Shawn bites his lip. “A while,” he admits. “When Lassie and the Chief get here, we’re gonna get you looked at. You came to for a little bit, kind of in and out, but this is the first time you’re…talking. How are you feeling?”

“Well,” she says slowly, as she thinks about it, “my head is killing me, and I feel kind of…weak, I guess. But besides that, I think I’m…okay?”

“Do you—do you remember anything?” he asks. It’s not the right time to ask, and he knows this, but he can’t help himself. He has to know. “From before? What’s the last thing you remember?”

Juliet frowns again, clearly thinking hard, although it makes her headache worse. “I remember waking up,” she says slowly, “this morning.” She pauses, a slight blush coloring her cheeks, and Shawn wishes he could tell exactly what she was remembering. She shakes her head, then winces at the pain of her own movement. “After that, I don’t remember anything. I remember getting out of bed, but I don’t remember anything else. What was I doing, when this happened? How did I—how did I get knocked out?”

Shawn hesitates, not wanting to get too deep into what had happened, in case it made her agitated. It wasn’t good for her to be stressed out, not after what she’d just gone through. “You—well, we—heard a noise,” he says finally, “outside the house, this morning. You went to get your gun…,” he pauses again, unsure how to finish.

Juliet doesn’t remember, he thinks suddenly. If she doesn’t remember going for her gun, she doesn’t remember why she was interrupted. She doesn’t remember what he said to her, and she doesn’t remember how she responded.

To be fair, of course, she hadn’t _totally_ responded, but she’d started to. She’d stepped away from her purse, towards Shawn, her arms outstretched as she went, reaching for him. Another moment and perhaps they would have been reunited at last.

But they weren’t.

They weren’t, because that was when Juliet had been pistol whipped, and collapsed, and Shawn had spent the next fifteen minutes trying to talk down a crazy person, and yet, now, more than anything else, he just feels a deep sadness at the fact that _she doesn’t remember any of it_.

“Shawn?” Juliet asks, confusion and fear clouding her face again.

He shakes his head, realizing he’d trailed off. He doesn’t know what to tell her. He’s still so worried about her, worried that something has really gone wrong. She must _at least_ have a concussion, after being out for so long, and he doesn’t want to frighten her.

And yet, also, he doesn’t want to _not_ tell her what he said before, because he meant it, and he’d been dying to say it, and she deserves to hear it, and above all of that, it’s _true_ , and Juliet deserves the truth from him.

But he doesn’t know how she’ll respond, now that they’re not in absolutely imminent we-will-die-in-the-next-minute danger. And so maybe now is not the moment. And plus, she has enough to worry about, with her head injury and with all that’s gone on since.

“Sorry,” he says, “like I said, it’s kind of a long story, a lot to explain, but anyway, you went for your gun, but before you could get it, Todd stormed in and pistol-whipped you.”

“Todd? Who’s Todd?”

Shawn almost laughs. “Right, sorry, um, his name’s actually not Todd—I’m not totally clear on what his name _is_ , actually, although I know _who_ he is…well, vaguely. And calling him Todd really pissed him off, so I couldn’t _not_ do it…”

“Um, Shawn?”

“Yes, Jules?”

“You’re not really clearing up a whole lot for me, right now,” she says, her voice quiet, a little smile playing at her lips.

Shawn sighs. “That’s…fair. For now, let’s just say, Todd is a placeholder name for the guy that knocked you out, because we don’t actually know his real one.”

Juliet nods, clearly not understanding, but trying to move past it. “Okay. And this guy is… _where_ , now?”

Shawn sighs again. “Um…not totally sure on that, either. He’s in the front room of the house, probably? But our backup may have reached him by now, I don’t know. Um, we’re in a closet, Jules.”

“A closet?” she looks puzzled. “Well, at least that explains the darkness. What closet are we in? And...uh, why are we in it?”

“The one in the bedroom,” Shawn says. “You were out, so we had to hide somewhere close. We’re—we’re hiding, by the way. I mean, as much as I wish this was a seven-minutes-in-Heaven-type situation, I don’t think that’s a _great_ idea, given that you woke up, like, one minute ago, and also, you know, we’ve got other things going on that we should _probably_ prioritize at the moment, although I’m not _not_ into seven-minutes-in-Heaven--.”

A smile tugs at Juliet’s lips, and seeing it sends such a wave of relief through Shawn that Juliet, being as close to him as she is, can probably feel his body relax. “Shawn, _not_ the time,” she says, still trying to hide her smile.

Shawn smiles anyway. Even if Juliet has no idea what he said to her before she passed out, she’s still clearly softening, much more than she had in the last few weeks. Maybe it’s because the last thing she _does_ seem to solidly remember is waking up next to him, but still, it gives him a surge of hope to think that, even though she obviously _can’t_ very well pull away in this moment, since they’re crammed in the tiny closet, she still isn’t _trying_ to pull away. So maybe he still has a chance to make this right.

When Shawn falls silent, Juliet looks up at him. It’s hard to see him in the darkness of the closet, but she notices immediately that he’s cradling the arm that he isn’t using to stroke her hair against his chest. _He’s in pain_ , she realizes, and suddenly, she remembers—Shawn was injured. She’d remembered, moments ago, waking up next to him, how close she’d come to… _something_ , when she’d woken up that morning, pressed against him, but she hadn’t remembered this.

And if they were here, in the closet now, that meant that he must have carried her, injured arm and all. A lump rises in her throat and she squeezes her eyes shut to quell the sudden rush of tears that threatens to spill over. Shawn had _carried_ her, despite his injured arm, and he hadn’t said a word about it, hadn’t called any attention to it, and didn’t seem to have any intention to do so. Her head may be in his lap, his fingers tracing comforting patterns through her hair, but he’s still doing his best to keep her boundaries intact, she realizes, and she’s hit with a sudden rush of affection for him, the kind she hasn’t let herself feel in a long time. For just a moment, she gets the sudden urge to pull his face down to hers.

But she resists. That would be the wrong thing. First of all, her head is killing her, and everything—even all of this—is a little fuzzy, so she shouldn’t make any giant decisions. And secondly, she has no idea where Shawn stands on all of it—he’s comforting her now, and he comforted her last night, but that could just be temporary, small moments like this just to keep her fear at bay, nothing more. And on top of all of that, there’s still anger in her. She knows that there is. Sooner or later, they have to have it out about what happened. They haven’t happened upon the right _moment_ , yet, but she knows they’ll have to address it, and until they do, she can’t lead him on like this, no matter how tempting it is, how futile it feels to delay the reunion she’s slowly realizing might be inevitable.

No, she will do this right. And the right way isn’t right now. Now, they have a case to solve.

“Jules?” Shawn asks, his voice thick with concern. Juliet realizes suddenly that her eyes are still closed.

“Jules, are you okay?” He asks again, sounding more alarmed, as she opens her eyes. The ache in her chest grows as she looks at his face, affection leaking through the fear, clear as day.

It’s _not_ the time.

“Fine,” she says, though that feels like a lie for an entirely different reason than Shawn would suspect. “So this Todd guy is still here?” she clarifies, pulling both of them back into the case.

Shawn swallows. “Um, yes, as far as I know. But the thing is, Jules—I don’t think that he’s a killer.”

She narrows her eyes. “I know you just said I’m probably concussed, so maybe I’m confused, but he _is_ the one that hit me in the back of the head, right?”

Shawn nods. “Okay, yes. But Jules, while you were out, he had a million chances to shoot both of us, and he didn’t. He didn’t even _try_. I just keep thinking that he’s got orders from _someone_ , I just don’t know who. If he was only working for himself, he would have definitely killed us. There was no reason not to, and no way he would’ve missed.”

Juliet frowns, struggling to sit up. Shawn eases her up, helping her lean against the wall of the closet. He feels emptier already without having her be so close to him, but at least in the tiny closet space, she’s not exactly far away.

“You good?” He asks quietly, finding her hand in the darkness and squeezing it gently.

She doesn’t answer right away, but she closes her eyes and squeezes his hand back. “Sorry, head rush. I’m…feeling pretty weak still.”

“Jules, you were out for at least ten minutes. This is an _astonishing_ recovery.”

She laughs lightly, rubbing at the back of her head, then shuts her eyes again. After a silent moment, she asks, “Okay, so you’re pretty sure that this Todd guy isn’t really our guy?”

“Think about it,” Shawn continues. “The explosions should have killed both of us, but they didn’t. For me, the device was much too obvious—as soon as I spotted it, I knew I had to get away. A real killer would’ve just blown up my dad’s house entirely and been done with it. Plus, he left a note to make _sure_ that whoever found it—which could have only been my dad or me—would know I’d been targeted, and you were next. And then yours…he planted it _at a police station in broad daylight_. His heart wasn’t in it. He wasn’t behind it.”

Juliet frowns, thinking it over. “Then who…?”

Shawn shakes his head. “That’s what I can’t figure out. Whoever it was thinks that we saw something we shouldn’t have seen. And either we did, and we were never able to piece it together, or we didn’t see it, in which case--.”

This time, she puts together exactly what he means. “We don’t have a chance,” she finishes glumly.

Shawn nods grimly. “I’ve been going over that case in my head, and _something_ doesn’t fit, but I don’t know what it is.”

“What case?” she asks.

“The one with the diamond trafficking. You would remember this one, you were lead.”

She thinks for a moment. “I have to be honest, everything’s a little fuzzy right now,” she says. “But I think I remember. The one with the warehouse, the blood diamonds?”

“It came together really easy--we arrested that guy Pereira, but then he got the plea bargain,” Shawn continues.

She nods, smiling a little. “Okay, I remember that. Carlton was so upset about that.”

“That’s the one. This guy Todd—well, not Todd—was a witness, the one that sent us to the warehouse. I never got his name because I wasn’t there when you interviewed him. I didn’t come in until later, when we went to arrest Pereira, so I only saw him in person briefly later, when he confirmed at the station that Pereira was the correct guy.”

Juliet thinks for a long moment, then snaps her fingers. “Thornton. I remember him. Eric Thornton.” She frowns in confusion. “ _That_ guy? Shawn, are you sure?”

“I remember his face when he was brought into the station to confirm it,” Shawn says. “Only, he’s different now, Jules. He’s got a shaved head and this snake tattoo on the back of his head—not a good look, by the way. It’s almost like some kind of makeover like you’d get if you joined a gang or something--.”

Juliet gasps. “Shawn, that might be it. I think—wait, let me think about this--.” She’s quiet for a moment, and Shawn can almost see the wheels turning in her head.

“Jules?” he asks finally.

“Sorry,” she says, “I’m having trouble focusing. But a snake tattoo—there’s something that rings a bell there, but I can’t put my finger on it.”

“He didn’t have the tattoo at the time--,” Shawn reminds her.

She shakes her head, then winces again at the wave of dizziness that washes over her. She’s _got_ to stop with the sudden movements. “No, it’s something else. There’s something about a snake tattoo, like the one this guy’s got is a copycat of _something_ I’ve seen before, but I can’t—I don’t know, I don’t remember.”

Shawn puts his good hand over hers, gently. “Jules, it’s okay. Don’t worry, you’ll come up with it at some point. Don’t push yourself too hard right now. When we nail this guy and you get to actually look at the tattoo, I’m sure it’ll come to you, if you really have seen it before.”

She nods. He’s right, of course. Her head is really throbbing, and this surely isn’t helping. But even without figuring out the tattoo link—and she _will_ figure it out, even if it’s not in this moment—there’s got to be something else she knows, something else helpful.

At long last, something comes to her as she does her best to recall the details of that old case. “Something’s not making sense, Shawn. Thornton wasn’t an employee of Pereira’s—in fact, he didn’t even work in the same warehouse--he was a foreman at the warehouse across the alley. Which means--.”

“I could be focusing on the wrong thing,” Shawn breathes. _Finally_ , something he’d started to realize while talking to Todd is coming together. “This isn’t about the diamond case, this is about something else that was going on around there at the time—something that we might have seen. The diamond case was a distraction; it didn’t matter as much.”

Juliet frowns. “Exactly. The only thing is, I can’t remember anyone else being there that night. I remember our backup was outside, and you and I were there, and Pereira was there, but I swear we didn’t see anyone else that night. That always bothered me a little bit. It was too clean.”

Shawn shakes his head. “That’s what I keep remembering, too. I’m _certain_ that I would remember if we saw anyone else. I know I would. But there was something that reminded me of that case yesterday morning, when I got the flash of that van outside. What _was_ it?” He grits his teeth, concentrating on remembering that night, trying not to think about how close he’s come, once again, to talking about how he really does what he does. Yes, he and Jules had talked about it, finally, but every time it comes up, it feels like a fresh wound, like he’s hurting her all over again.

“What if it wasn’t _someone_?” she asks. “What if it was _something_? Do you remember anything else about that warehouse?”

Shawn closes his eyes for a minute, almost bringing his hand to his head, out of habit, but catches himself at the last moment. He pictures the warehouse, remembering where they’d slid in, past a van in the alley, through an open roll-up door, him behind Juliet, slinking along the edge of the warehouse to stay out of sight as they planned how they would take Pereira down.

Jules had worn blue that night, he remembers. It was one of his favorite shirts of hers, a kind of greenish blue that brought out her eyes and looked amazing with her hair, which she’d worn half-down that night, a few curls pinned up, but most of it falling in gentle waves over her shoulders—wait, this wasn’t the time to remember that. But he smiled a little, remembering how Juliet in that shirt had distracted him that night in the warehouse as well. Although, perhaps that’s the very reason he can’t see what he needs to see now. Still probably worth it, though.

“What are you smiling at?” Juliet asks. “Do you have something?”

He opens his eyes, shaking his head a little. “Sorry, Jules. I just—I just remembered, you wore the blue-green shirt that night on that case, and I got a little distracted for a minute.”

Even in the darkness, he can tell that she’s blushing, and it makes him smile. It’s been a long time since he felt this comfortable flirting with her, and the fact that she’s just blushing and not immediately shutting him down gives him hope that they might really be on their way back. But Juliet doesn’t flirt back. Clearing her throat, she says, “well, I like blue.”

“You look beautiful in blue,” he says softly, and he catches her smile before she hides it.

 _“Shawn_.” He can hear the smile, still, in her voice. _God_ , he loves her.

He grins, then closes his eyes again. “Right, back to the case. There’s gotta be something there, Jules. I know we can do this.”

After a minute, Juliet groans in frustration. “I can’t remember anything that was suspicious. All I remember is thinking that that case was way too easy, and then trying to talk myself out of that.”

“Well, to be fair, you did just have a head injury,” Shawn says.

“So did you.”

“Mine was yesterday,” Shawn says, “it’s old news. And besides, my brain is protected from damage by my hair.”

“Not how that works,” she says, laughing quietly.

“How would you know? You have a head injury.”

She laughs again. “Shawn, don’t make me laugh. I thought we were supposed to be hiding in here.” 

Shawn smiles, wincing. “Ooh, yeah, kind of forgot about that.”

They’re quiet for a few minutes, both thinking about the case, and the events of the morning, and how they’d ended up stuck in the closet together.

Shawn is, once again, having a hard time focusing on the matters at hand. He’s distracted again by the fact that Juliet doesn’t remember what he said to her this morning before she got knocked out. He’s been encouraged by the way she’s been since she came to—she’s let him flirt with her, let him play with her hair and hold her hand—but he doesn’t know if that’s going to last once they solve this.

Is this all just temporary, a momentary allowance because someone is trying to kill them, or is it a sign that she’s as ready as he is to put all of the past behind them and move on to the good stuff? He doesn’t want to risk making her angry, and he _especially_ doesn’t want to hurt her again, but if all of this is only temporary, that’s going to break his heart. Going through all of this with her has given him so much hope that _maybe_ they’re going to be okay, and he can’t stand the thought of losing her again, not when he’s come so close to getting back the best thing that’s ever happened to him, to fixing the worst mistake he’s ever made, all in one. 

He needs to know. He needs to settle this. Because if she gets injured again, he has to know how she was going to respond to what he said earlier. He can’t stand the not knowing.

“Jules?” he whispers. “Do you think--.”

But before he can get the words out, Juliet’s eyes grow wide, and she shushes him. “Hold on,” she whispers, reaching past him for the gun that’s lying on the floor next to her purse. “I think I hear something.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew, we reached the end of this chapter, and they’re still not out of the freaking closet. But we’ll get there. I apologize if this seems slow-moving! This case is about to get…incredibly convoluted, and there’s a lot of groundwork to lay.
> 
> As always, I would really love to hear any thoughts you have on all of it. Thank you so very much for reading, and especially for reading this chapter, which would’ve been long as a one-shot, let alone in this! I really really REALLY appreciate those of you who are following along with this story! Thanks so much for everything!

**Author's Note:**

> Definitely different from my usual stuff, but I do hope you enjoyed this! Please feel free to leave any thoughts in the comments, it truly makes my day to read them! Next chapter will be up next week. :)


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